Pumping iron at Wat Manni Pieson

The gear

View Photos (3) Image © 2008 John McMahon

            Mae sot is one of the termination towns in Thailand. From here you can go no further west without entering Myanmar (Burma). Like many other border towns the population is a mix of Thaïs, Burmese, Karen, Mon and because of  gem trading between the two countries; Indians and the odd Nigerian. Mae sot is also head quarters to several NGO's so that there is a constant flow of fresh young western collegiates in and out of town. Due to the amount of foreigners this small town offers excellent restaurants, and accommodation, with one of the highest value to price equations in Thailand.

            Mae Sot is a popular place for Thais and foreigners alike to stop over on their way to small isolated town of Umpang, for trekking, rafting, biking and viewing Tor Lu Su water fall, the tallest in Thailand. Alternatively the drive north of Mae sot to Mae Saraing and Mae Hong Son is a visually stunning and very challenging four hundred plus Kilometers of jungle sided mountain roads that has become a badge of honor for motorcyclists who complete it. Watch for Mahouts and their elephants working on the side of the road.  

            Within the city center of Mae Sot, ten minutes from the short strip of tourist facilities is Wat Manni Paison. Which predates the town, the one hundred and twenty year old Wat is like a thousand others in Thailand from the outside. A large stepped pagoda covered with small stuppas stands over the wall at the street entrance. Inside the compound there is the normal activates and sights of a Wat with the half feral Wat dogs, people strolling or cycling through,  rows of Buddha images, the prayer hall, various towers and bells. Men and boys dressed in the bright orange robes of  Theravada Buddhists sweeping and chanting, though a few of these monks do look thicker then your ordinary Pra.

            Through the tangle of buildings of Wat Manni Paison (the precious stone of the jungle) is the herbal sauna. Popular among men and women of the town for the health benefits of inhaling the herbal steam. It's not an unusual addition to a Thai Wat. What is unusual is the clutter of flintstonesqe boddy building apparatus lying about in what would normally be the recovery area. Where you would  normally expect steam takers to be recuperating from the heat there is a collection of young men doing push ups, dumbbell curls, bench presses, and sit ups on hand wrought benches with weights cast in concrete or made of welded plates of steel. Some of them look like Maui Thai fighters, ripped and hard as nails, others like young swells spending as much time looking into the solitary mirror over the water tank as pushing iron. Amongst these men you may notice a couple of very large monks working up a sweat. The younger one, carries the girth of a heavy weight boxer and is cut like a diamond pressing the fixed weight on the bench in a series of sevens. The older, who looks to be in his fifties but is topping seventy by a couple of years, is doing bicep curls in quick reps before starting out on his daily jog of fifty laps around the compound.

            The older Monk Pra Chung started lifting weights and fitness training at the Wat twenty five years ago. Over the years he has collected and built with fellow monk enthusiasts; the various weights,  the two bench's, the decline board, the push up handles and the solitary aerobic alpine skiing machine which sits neglected in the corner. Monks and lay man alike come on a voluntary basis. There is no routine, or program no one wipes the equipment with towels when there through and most of the normal warm up and cool down stretching can be achieved by fending off the mosquitoes. There is a small donation box at the entrance which goes for the wood used to firie the sauna, the ten or twenty baht is well worth the the sauna alone.  

            Is this agreeable with concentrating on Buddha, on achieving the quite within I asked. ‘Healthy body leads to a healthy mind' Pra Chung answered, flexing a huge old tattooed bicep as he smoked a hand rolled cigarette after his work out, and I wasn't going to argue. The sauna and fitness equipment are open to all from four to seven every day. The Wat is off of Thanon Intharakhiri ten minutes from the police station.

Published on 5/1/08