[Kate] Buddhist Offerings

On Sunday, our second day in Phuket, we went on a John Gray's Sea Canoe boat to explore the surrounding islands.  On our first stop we canoed inside a cave, with an exit so narrow we had to lay down so our heads didn't bang.  My nose was an inch away from the ceiling.  At the cave's exit we entered the lagoon in the center of the island.  

Here are Grace and I on the canoe in the lagoon.

At our second island we did something similar.  As we headed to our third and final island, the five of us headed to the front of the boat, where we were told we were going to make two traditional buddhist offerings.  Grace, Cannon and I worked on one, and our parents worked on the other.  Both of us had guides to help us (who ended up doing most of the work).

There were many materials that we were using, including:

• Banana leaves
• Part of a banana tree trunk
• Orchid flowers
• Orchid blossoms
• Orchid stems
• Small metal pins
• A marigold flower
• Candles
• Incense

We started with folding the banana leaves into the rights shapes and pinning them onto the side of the tree trunk, then did the same with some of the orchids.  With the stems we made a little platform one-stick, where we placed two orchid blossoms, and made an arch over them.  The interesting thing about orchid blossoms is how much they look like little birds, so this setup was resemblant of a bird wedding.  We put the marigold flower's petals around the blossoms, and added candles and incense to the edges.

Here are some of the materials.

Here we are pinning down the leaves.

Here we are with it when it is finished.

Here are Mom and Dad with the offering they made.

Here is a close-up of the swing on Mom and Dad's.

After we had finished making our offerings we went into another lagoon and set the incense and candles alight, setting the offerings in the water.

Here are our offerings in the water.

(After a while we pickled our offerings so we weren't littering.)