#  >  > Thailand Festivals, Beaches, Scuba Diving and Temples, Tell us Your Tales >  >  > Thailands Wats Temples and Mosques >  >  Wai Phra or Making a Buddhist Offering

## dirtydog

*Wai Phra*



First off your going to need to learn to Wai, rather than look like some  nerdy farang with arms and legs all over the place and wondering how  high your hands should be in relation to your nose you need to read our "How and What to Wai Tutorial", another useful read is our "Giving Flowers to Buddha".


Time to choose a Temple, now you may want to consider that you could  make a real arse of yourself and may wish never to set foot inside that  Temple ever again, so choose wisely, not the one you may end up visiting  every week with your Thai wife or girlfriend, choose one that wont  cause in problems with you and yours if you never go back to that one  again, plenty to choose from, now all the stuff you will need is at the  Temple, for footwear just wear flip flops, trainers or nice shoes are  just a pain to take off and on at Temples, also show some respect in  what you wear, trousers and a shirt do go down well, no wife beater  singha beer vests and speedo swimming trunks.


Quite often Temples will have fairs and things to raise money for various items, here is a lot of money that has been raised.




If it is for Temple building etc you may have to gold leaf the round  balls that go in the ground to protect the Temple from evil spirits,  there is a certain amout of gold balls and you get that amount of pieces  of gold leaf, windy days and you will lose some, that probably means  really really bad things will happen to you.



Anyway the above was from a really complex Temple raising fund, had to  do just about everything Buddhist that there is to do, we just want to  get the basics down pat here so you can feel confident when walking into  a Temple and not feel like a complete dick as you do something really  stupid like moving something over to the Monk with your foot, more on Temple Fund Raising (Hua Yai Temple fund raising).

So first off collect your Wai Phra Kit, in that you will get a candle, 3  incense sticks, a flower or flowers and maybe some gold leaf, if there  are any things that need gold leaf on them you will see them and others  putting the gold leaf onto them, 1 piece of gold leaf per statue and  your good to go, although do the gold leaf last, not sure if that is  like a fixed rule but that's the way I see it happen every time.

Find the Buddha image with the candles in front of it, feet behind you  crawl to the statue, light the candle and place next to the others, your  flower or flowers are next, normally to the side will be a bucket with  water and flowers in, place yours there and lets get on with the incense  sticks, light them up with your candle, hold between palms and pray  like hell, once that is over and done with put the incense sticks into  the sand and do the triple Wai, ie 3 Wais with palms hitting the ground,  and that's all there is to it, congratulations on your first *Wai Phra or Making a Buddhist Offering.

*In this photo you can see the candles, the incense sticks and of course lotus flowers have been used for flowers at this Temple.

Making Merit (Making Merit Photos)
The Lotus for Luck*

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## Curious George

I felt that this Post was very useful to those, not in the know. Some Wats only look for money, but others are truly interested in the people!

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