Temples

Today was another long, hot day. Since we have a couple days until the project starts, the group has been going out together. Today we visited several of the city's historic temples. The first one we visited is the oldest temple in the city, Wat Chiang Man. It was originally built in 1297. I couldn't even grasp that I was standing inside something so ancient. The temple is on the inside of the old city moat, which borders a square mile of the oldest part of the city.

You could go inside and walk around the statues and paintings, but you have to take off your shoes. Everywhere you go indoors here you have to take off your shoes. There are mats for people to kneel on and meditate or make offerings to Buddha. Very quiet and actually quite cool on the inside. It was a nice retreat from the scorching heat. This building with the elephants was in the garden. We were told it was still part of this temple, but only monks could enter it.

(I will upload more pictures on Facebook, just giving you a little taste here)

We noticed a lot of trees in the areas around the temples with colored bands of fabric tied around their trunks. Our Thai guide told us the monks do this in order to protect the trees from being cut down. It really gave them a pretty effect.

The second temple was my favorite. It was a lot smaller, but still had very intricate detail. The colors were different from all the others, too. More blacks, blues, and greens. The inside was beautiful, as well. But there was a man sitting in a box who scared us half to death when we spotted him, only to be told it was a wax statue. Below we are in front of this temple. Starting left, it is me, Sarah (from the UK), Kenzie (from Colorado), and Maria (from Amsterdam).

What I really liked learning was that the dragon statues in front of the temple are there to guard it from evil spirits and act as a barrier between heaven and hell. My favorite part of the temple was an offering area that had seven different Buddha statues with bowls beneath them. The bowls are labeled with the days of the week. Our guide told use you are supposed to put money in the bowl for the day of the week you were born. It is good luck. Luckily I actually knew mine, Saturday. After putting money in, the guide explained to me that my Buddha is the symbol of protection during tumultuous times. I'll take that.

More later. Going to bed now.