Free the Fish

This past weekend, Gwyn and his girlfriend Bea took Meg and I out to see more of Bangkok. Gwyn works for AIS, the largest telecommunications operator here in Thailand, and one of Consilient's clients, so we work together daily. We left at 9am for a fish market, located near the Chao Phraya river.  There were hundreds of live fish there and we ended up buying about 20 (Gwyn and Bea bought about 40).



However, we didn't buy the fish to eat.  Instead, we bought them to set free in the river.  Buddhists in Thailand consider such an act of kindness as reflecting good on them for this life and their next (i.e. karma & reincarnation).   So, off we went with our fish to one of the piers along the river.   There were literally thousands of fish in this part of the river as people quite often feed them.  And we did exactly that - we bought some fish food and started the feeding.  I hope the fish we released managed to get some of our food!



Afterwards, Gwyn and Bea took us to a number of temples and shrines.  Some of them (not the one in the picture below though) were completely unknown to toursits so it was a treat to see places of worship without the throngs of people.



Finally, we ended off our tour day with lunch at a riverside restaurant where we sampled some delicious Thai food.  The spicy scallops with cashew nut were particularly delicious!