After planting the trees at the temple, the participants climbed into trucks, vans,
and buses to make the five-kilometer trip into the mountains to the tree chosen to be
ordained. Over 200 people accompanied the more than twenty monks to the site,
which had earlier been prepared by volunteer development workers and villagers. A
four-foot-tall Buddha image had been placed on a concrete stand at the base of the
giant tree. The thick vegetation around the site had been trimmed, and a tent for the
monks put up. Phrakhru Pitak commented that over twenty years ago, when he
walked the eight kilometers from his village through the deep forest to school along
this route, this tree was not unusual for its height or size. Now it clearly stood out
as the tallest remaining tree. One could now see for miles from it across a landscape
dotted with nearly vertical maize fields, visible because of the deforested hillsides.