Day 10 started like all of the other days. We had the morning meditations, the breakfast break, and the 8:00 sitting and the next meditation session. When we emerged mid morning, there was a sign posted that the noble silence had ended, at least outside of the meditation hall, and that there were some schedule changes to allow us to retrieve our wallets and purses from the lockers and make the dannas to the center for courses for other students.

We hadn't paid for the course or for the room and board. Donations are part of the Buddhist tradition of building good deeds. Others donated so we could attend, and now we donate so others can attend. I earmark some of my donation not for the course, but for building improvements. The screen in the ceiling above my shower had fallen in one night, and I'd had to switch rooms. There are some problems with the roof that they are trying to fix.

The chatter among the students was delightful to hear. I found that many more of them spoke English, or were willing to try, than had on the first day. Everyone wanted to know "where are you from?" and "why you come to Thailand?" It was fun to hear where people had come from, and about their prior experience with Vipassana.

As promised, we learned another form of meditation. It is called meta (although I need to check the spelling). Meta is used to wish happiness and peace and harmony on all beings, and follows at the end of a Vipasanna session.

We had the normal evening discourse, and the next morning, the eleventh day, we had some required chanting and another discourse starting at 4:30 am. This discourse focused on the importance of maintaining a daily practice, one hour in the morning, one hour in the evening. We'll see how I do with that. After the discourse, there was a meta session. That brought us to 6:30 am and the end of the course. There was a massive scurry of everyone changing out the covers on the meditation cushions. Breakfast was available. We had to change out our bed linens and clean the rooms for the next set of students, arriving Wednesday.

I got cleaned up and packed up and moved my things out of the cleaned room. I retrieved my electronics from lock up, and took some pictures. I headed to the garage to retrieve my bike. I had been told that I had a flat tire. That wasn't too surprising, as I'd had a slow leak previously. When I got to the garage, I found it completely flat. The mechanic there kept saying the word for flat tire, and I promptly forgot it. I removed the wheel from the bike and the tire from the wheel. The flat was due to a small thorn I found still stuck in the tire. I patched the tube, patiently waiting for the glue to set. The whole process of finding the cause, patching the tube, pumping up the tire, and putting everything back together probably took half an hour. When I went back to the Vippasana area just about everyone had left. I took a few more pictures, and then left myself. It felt a little anticlimactic.

I rode back to Lamphun the same way I had come. We had a couple of heavy rains during the course, but the past few days had been dry and the mud had hardened. It was a nice ride. I hadn't really noticed the slow climb from Lamphun to Simanta, but the coast back down was fun. I stopped, as usual, at the first 7-Eleven I came to, but found I didn't really want anything. I had a yogurt drink, though, just because I thought I should have something.

I went into the old town of Lamphun. I thought I would find the coffee shop I'd stopped at before the retreat and use their Wi-Fi to find a place to stay and find out what had happened in the world. For some reason I couldn't find the coffee shop, but went into a restaurant with a western menu and a Wi-Fi sign. They actually sent someone out to find someone to speak English and help me order. Then they found their English menu. I ordered "fish and ship". It came with a huge piece of fish and 3 French fries, as well as some salad. I lingered over the food as I went online.

I had decided I wanted a hotel room and not the hostel, and picked out the Royal Princess Hotel, a little bit north of the city on the road toward Chiang Mai. It seems to be mostly a business hotel. My room is quite nice. 500 baht for the room, and 100 for breakfast. There is a partial wall in the bathroom to keep the water from the shower away from the toilet and sink. The only drip in the bathroom is in the sink. But there is a line of ants across the dresser that have discovered some stray peanuts at the bottom of my handlebar bag. Time to clean that up.

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I spent the afternoon and evening updating this journal, and had dinner at the hotel restaurant. Tomorrow I'll go to Chiang Mai, and spend a few days with the tourist crowd there and do some planning for the next stage of this trip.