66 PHRA EAM MAKES 



f earsomely from behind house corners as you pass : 

 the king showed excellent taste indeed in moving 

 elsewhere. But the river journeys were produc- 

 tive. Once I came up with a picturesque group 

 of yellow-robed priests resting in a mosquito net- 

 ting camp on their pilgrimage to the far-famed 

 Wat Prabat, where the faithful may view 

 Buddha's sacred footprint. Another time I 

 sought refuge in one of the rest houses, which, at 

 intervals of about a day's journey, are scattered 

 along well defined routes for the free use of pil- 

 grims to the many wats around Bangkok, and 

 other travellers less religiously inclined. These 

 houses, which are built at the expense of the king 

 or the Government or of some private individual 

 as a merit-making enterprise, consist of a raised 

 floor covered by a roof supported at its four cor- 

 ners by plain teak wood posts and open on all four 

 sides. As the average journeying priest or Sia- 

 mese wayfarer is none too clean, it is well, if you 

 use the rest house, to be provided with a brand of 

 insect destroyer of unfailing killing power. If 

 you are thus well armed, you may have a piece of 

 the wooden floor to yourself, and pick up a fruit 

 and fish breakfast from the peddlers who make 

 the rest house a first call on their early route. 



The day of our departure was heralded far and 

 wide and all Eatburi, with its sisters, cousins and 



