Very early, around 6:30 in the morning, Buddhist monks wrapped in their saffron robes appear everywhere on the streets of Bangkok.

They walk sometimes slowly and sometimes not so slowly, barefoot and with their alms bowls held in front of them. This is the hour they go out to collect their food for the day.

They are supposed to live on charity, and in ancient times, a Thai woman once told me, they had to go door to door begging for food, since Buddhism practiced properly stands in complete opposition to materialism. Monks are not meant to handle money in their daily lives.

Over time everything has drifted, and like every religion, even one that seems more spiritual than others, it has lost a great deal. It has become another religion focused on money and commerce.

A Thai friend mentioned to me that Thai Buddhists are disillusioned with what has happened to their religion in recent years.

I live just a few blocks from a market with its typical stalls set up along the sidewalks. At this hour of the morning those stalls carry a somewhat different kind of charm. People are fresh, the activity is just getting started, and you can watch them setting up their small braziers, their portable stoves, and all the other implements needed to prepare food.

Most people display a kind of quiet reverence toward these monks who come out to receive their offerings. I have gone out three times now to watch this happen, and this past week, when our dear friends Charo and Darío came to visit (just as I had done with Adriana before them), I took them along to see it. This time I finally took the photos I had been wanting to take ever since I arrived, the ones I kept putting off because I worried they would make the monks uncomfortable. And indeed it was not easy, because most of them don't like it, and on top of that they are constantly moving. Meanwhile, all around them, people kneel to receive blessings.

In their dress there is never any obvious difference, though in their bowls there is: you notice the variation in "quality" from one vessel to the next. If you come across them at other hours of the day they always wear sandals, but at these early hours none of them do.

People also told me, with some sadness, that not all of those I might assume to be monks necessarily are. Some dress up to beg, and it has gotten easier for them because the whole thing is now organized near markets and commercial areas.

The only thing that makes me think the scene outside my building hasn't been infiltrated by these false monks is that I live in a very Thai neighborhood, and after three times watching this I recognize most of their faces.

There is, for instance, an older man who appears in several of the photos and who always stops beside the same stall, right at the entrance to the market, in the middle of what would be the sidewalk where the street vendors set up. It doesn't take much to conclude that he is the most senior of the monks who come through here. His manner is always watchful and not at all trusting, nothing like certain other monks whose faces show only a placid calm, unconcerned with monitoring anything beyond their own inner state. This older monk and one other are the ones who dispense blessings freely to anyone who asks.

This particular day was different from the others because it was the vegetarian food festival, so at one of the stalls you could already see prepared dishes set out for purchase, sparing people the trouble of thinking about what to give the monks or anyone else.

Usually these offerings are served in plastic bags or plastic containers for easy transport. The monks collect everything into their lidded bowls.

On one occasion I bought some fruit and gave it to one of them, but when I ran out and found another monk beside me giving me a look that clearly meant "hand something over," I pulled out a bill, which he did not turn down. That happened the first time I went out to watch. So along with being my first outing, it was also my first small disillusionment.

While the monks were not particularly pleased about my camera, the market vendors just starting to prepare their food actually seemed to enjoy posing for the photos.

As in any worldly, cosmopolitan city, there is no shortage of passersby who simply walk past without so much as glancing at their monks.

But this time we also had the good luck of watching a family of three who stopped on a corner as if waiting for something specific. They held their position for quite a while, though in the end we never found out what they were waiting for.

It seems impossible, but at this early hour the hair salons are already straightening some woman's hair. Here, the vast majority of Thai women wear their hair straighter than it naturally grows and visit the salon with remarkable frequency.

In the end, watching this spectacle at such an early hour is genuinely interesting, and well worth getting up for.