Sri Mariamman

 

I got inspired for this layout by a layout posted on Isabelle's blog Scrapanima. She scrapped pictures from Amsterdam - and I made it into a two-page spread and scrapped pictures from this cool and weird hindu temple in Bangkok, Thailand.
After spending three weeks in Buddhist Thailand, it was amazing to visit this temple that was so completely different. I've tried researching the Hindu religion and it has a lot of aspects I like - for instance the way they value every living thing and sees the divine in everything and therefore often are vegetarians - and it's against the law to kill a cow in most parts of India. But I still don't get why the worshippers get food blessed by the monks, puts it in front of an image of a God - and then the monks put it back out for sale immediately... Good business - but why?

Materials:

• Cardstock: Club Scrap Fizz, Stratosphere and Refresh
• Font: Courier New, Amelie and Ancient Script
• Buttons: From stash

Journaling:

• English version:
  Page 1: The temple is built by immigrants from Sri Lanka back in the 1860's.
  Together with the hindu gods like Vishnu and Shiva, the temple has pictures of Buddha so every non-muslim, non-christian can worship there.
  Page 2: We got up kind of late and checked out of the hotel about half past eleven - luckily they had storage room for our bags untill we had to leave for the airport in the evening. We found a restaurant and got bad cheese burgers and fried eggs for breakfast.
  We didn't really want to do anything today - was all Wat'ed out and was readdy to go home...
  We decided to go see a Hindu temple, Sri Mariamman to see something completely different. However it was really hard to get a tuk-tuk to drive us there. The first one offered us a very low price but when we got in he started to list all the places he wanted to drive us too before the temple - and when we made it very clear that we wanted to go directly to the temple, he didn't want to drive us but told us to find someone else.
  The other driver tried as well to drive us to different stores but when we both said 'NO' very loud and clear, he gave up and drove us too Sri Mariamman.
  Neither one of them could understand why wanted to go to a hindu temple - they wanted to drive us to the lying buddha or the standing buddha but since we had seen both, we finally got to go to the hindu temple.
  The temple turned out to be very different when we finally got there. Very colorfull and with a lot of images. You wasn't allowed to take pictures inside so we kind of cheated and took a few pictures and then took pictures from the outside. Inside it seemed like one big scam. You could buy a platter of food and pray over it, get it blessed by a monk who carried it inside a back room for a few seconds and said a few words over it before he handed it back to you. Then you placed it in front of an image of a god - and shortly after another man sweeped it off the table and into a basket and placed it behind the table where they sold the platters so it could be re-cycled and sold again... Very strange, but definitely good business!
• Danish version:
  Side 1: Templet er bygget af tamilske immigranter i 1860’erne.
  Sammen med de hinduistiske guder som fx Vishnu og Shiva er der også nogle Buddha billeder, så stort set alle ikke-muslimske, ikke-kristne kan tilbede her.
  Side 2: Vi stod halv-sent op i dag og tjekkede ud af hotellet omkring halv tolv – heldigvis kunne de opbevare vores bagage til om aftenen, hvor vi skulle af sted til lufthavnen. Vi fandt en restaurant og fik dårlige cheeseburgere med spejlæg i (!) til morgenmad.
  Vi gad ikke rigtig noget i dag – var Wat’et ud og ved at være klar til at tage hjem…
  Vi besluttede os for at tage ud til et hindu-tempel, Sri Mariamman, for at se noget helt andet. Det var dog meget svært at få en tuk-tuk der ville køre os derud. Den første gav os en meget billig pris, men da vi var kommet ind, begyndte han at nævne alle de steder han ville køre os til inden – og da vi gjorde meget klart, at vi ville direkte til templet, så ville han ikke køre med os alligevel, men henviste os til en anden. Også han forsøgte at få lov til at køre os til diverse butikker – men da vi begge sagde ’NO’ meget højt og bestemt, så opgav han og kørte os til Sri Mariamman.
  Ingen af dem kunne dog forstå hvad vi ville til et hindu tempel for – de forsøgte at få lov til at køre os til den liggende buddha eller den stående buddha, men da vi jo havde set begge, fik vi lov til at komme til hindu templet.
  Templet viste sig at være meget anderledes, da vi først kom derud! Meget farvestrålende og fyldt med figurer. Man måtte desværre ikke fotografere, så vi snød os til lidt billeder og fotograferede så udefra. Indeni virkede det som et stort svindelnummer. Man kunne købe et fad med frugt og bede for det, få det velsignet af en munk, der lige bar det ind i baglokalet nogle få sekunder og sagde nogle ord over det, inden man fik det tilbage. Så stillede man det foran en gud – og kort efter fejrede en anden mand det ned i en kurv og stillede det hen bag det bord, hvorfra de solgte fadene, så det kunne blive genbrugt og solgt igen … Meget mærkeligt, men klart en god forretning!