After giving our bodies a good workout with the morning bike ride on Saturday, Megan and I gave our minds a good workout with an afternoon meditation at Wat Sokpaluang.

Although I can barely maneuver the motorbike with just me on it, I nervously drove the two of us the short distance to the temple. We walked around the shady grounds and sat on a bench for a while to listen to the monks chanting.

At 4 p.m., we climbed the steps to the covered deck of a small chapel, where three monks greeted us, and rows of cushions were laid out for visitors to sit facing the little Buddha shrine. About 20 people showed up for the meditation. The leader (a man from India, maybe?) noted that the temple started offering free weekly meditation sessions about 12 years ago for the local expats, but after a mention in the Lonely Planet guidebook, it now serves mostly tourists.

He explained that we would be practicing Vipassana (insight) Meditation. He gave us a silent mantra for the sitting meditation: “Bhu” on the inhale, “dho” on the exhale. We sat for about 20 minutes until he rang a bell, signaling the start of a walking meditation. At that point, we all got up and walked slowly around the chapel building for about 20 minutes, following his instructions for focusing our minds. At the signal, we returned to our cushions for another 20 minutes of seated meditation.

I was surprisingly successful at first. I stuck with the mantra and kept my focus on my breath. Every time a thought popped in to my head, I put it in a little boat and sailed it away. During the walking meditation, I also managed to stay in the moment and only needed a couple little boats to ferry away my invasive thoughts. Then it all fell apart during the final seated meditation. My back hurt from sitting up straight, and my mind wandered incessantly: Where would we go for dinner? I don’t want Megan to leave tomorrow! Don’t judge the two girls wearing next to nothing at the temple meditation. Boy, that coffee gave me the jitters. Ooooh, I can hear some monks chanting in a different temple building. Cool, now they’re banging some gongs. Ha! Every time, they bang the gongs, the neighborhood dogs bark their heads off. Shut up, brain!

So I spent 20 minutes in physical agony while a whole armada played bumper boats in my mind.

Still, I enjoyed the experience and told the leader I hoped to be back.

Here, Megan is relieved to have survived the motorbike ride and is ready to meditate at Sokpaluang Temple.