More Artists, More Temples

Today was a day of temples. The guy who owns the B&B was really helpful and got a driver for us to go over to the White temple (from the 3rd famous artist of Chaingrai), while arranging that he told us about a tour of the city that was free and we could stop at several spots in the city (mostly temples), so we decided to do that too. I had until about 3 before I had to fly back to Bangkok.  So off we went.

You would think (after seeing the Black Temple) the White Temple might be a little less creepy. Well, I’m not sure that you’d be right. While it definitely had a different feeling to it, there were parts that were of a similar tone to the other one. There were several skulls everywhere, and a couple of things that were pretty graphic.  Apparently though, we missed the sculpture of all the hands reaching up from Hell to grab everyone (not sure how that happened).  Anyway, I’ll let you look at the pictures for yourself. 

White Temple

The building with the bathrooms, no joke.

Practicing my Thai greeting.

No really, they don't want you to smoke here (note the cartons of cigarettes in the hands).

Our driver took us to the start of the tour and helped us talk to the tour people. Since it is free, they don’t actually give them unless there are at least 5 people there to take the tour. It was just Matt and I (Kari and Cathy decided to take the day off), and so we needed 3 others. The driver didn’t seem to think that he could just leave us there (even though we were only a few blocks away from the B&B where we had to be later. He was really funny too. After he’d gotten everything straightened out, we tried to find a place to eat lunch and our driver kept following us, worried that we would get lost.  He was trying to be helpful, and was, but it was pretty funny. It felt a little stalker-ish. 

One the tour we got to see several temples with different stories. One of them had a replica of the Emerald Buddha (remember, the one made out of Jade).  It was exactly to scale except, it was 1cm smaller, so as not to confuse the real one. Why at this temple you ask? (Okay you probably didn’t, but I will ask it for you.) The story goes like this: Several hundred years ago there was a lightening storm that struck the pagoda at this temple, and it cracked open the pagoda. Inside of it was the Emerald Buddha. Since it had to be placed in Bangkok at the Grand Palace, they put the replica here. I don’t know how much of that is truth, but that’s what the Thais say. We also went to a temple that let you hit their gong; that was fun!

Jade Buddha (Emerald Buddha's replica)

This one is over 700 years old and made of wood!

That was pretty much the day. After that we got back to the B&B, and said good-bye to Matt (he’s staying on for a couple of weeks by himself), and Kari, Cathy, and I flew back to Bangkok.