Kristen in Thailand: Wat Phra Kaew

Yesterday, P'Kla, P'Beam and I went to a grand total of three temples: Wat Phra Kaew, Wat Pho, and Wat Arun. Since temples are considered to be sacred places, everyone has to dress appropriately, which means I had to wear jeans and a t-shirt and shoes all day, and it was incredibly hot. Although amazingly, I didn't get sun-burned at all, just a little bit of a farmers type tan on top, if you can believe it.

Anyways, the first temple of the day was Wat Phra Kaew, also known as the Temple of the Emerald Buddha ("Wat" in Thai means "Temple"). In order to get there, we drove to The Mall, parked the car, and then took a boat down a canal. The boat was crowded, so I didn't really get any good pictures. Also I didn't really see anything, as they have the tarps all on the side of the boat to prevent too much water from splashing in. However, on the way back, that didn't prevent a whole bunch of nasty water from spraying me and Beam. When we got off the boat we took a tuk-tuk to the Temple. I'd never been in a tuk-tuk before, and I think it was probably one of my favorite things about the whole day haha. In case you're wondering, a tuk-tuk is like a three wheeled open-air taxi. I don't really know how else to explain it. So we spent a bunch of time looking around the Temple and the Grand Palace. The buildings were all BEAUTIFUL and sparkly (they're all covered in like tiny mirrors so they sparkle in the sun). One of my favorite things were the Giant statues guarding the temple, and I even bought myself a miniature giant head. Seeing the Emerald Buddha was guite amazing too. I'm not sure of the whole story behind it, and Beam couldn't really explain it to me, but I do know this much: the Emerald Buddha isn't very big (maybe only 2 feet tall?) and it's not made out of real emerald, it is just very important to the Thai people because at one point another country stole it from Thailand, and they Thai's had to fight to get it back. It sits in the main temple, high up on all these different gold decorations, and it wears a different outfit depending on the season, and the King himself is the one who changes the Buddha's outfit for each season. Although most of the buildings were beautiful, I didn't really know what they were, or what their names were, so I mostly just took pictures and had fun being a tourist. Of course, since Kla and Beam are actually Thai, they didn't have to pay to get in to the Temple (or any of them for that matter). It was really neat though to see two Thai people actually praying in the most beautiful and famous Buddhist temple in all of Thailand.

On to the next temple, Wat Pho, which houses the world famous Reclining Buddha. I don't really know too much about this Buddha either, except that it is HUUUUGE, and completely gold, with feet that are covered in mother of pearl. Very Beautiful. And of course, it is Reclining (laying down on it's side, with it's head propped up by it's hand.) For those of you who don't already know, the Thai Buddha is different from the Chinese Buddha (the fat/happy looking Buddha). Thai Buddha's are skinny, and usually not smiling (those are really the only physical differences I can tell, I'm not sure about spiritual differences?) We walked around that temple a bit more, and I took pictures of all the beautiful buildings.

We took a tuk-tuk to a market nearby, where we stopped for a light lunch (which was pork on skewers with peanut sauce) and then took a ferry across the river to go to Wat Arun. At Wat Arun we didn't actually go inside any temples, we just climbed a very big temple. It was actually really fun, because the stairs were sooo steep and scary to climb up, I was clinging for dear life to the handrail. When we got to the top we looked around at the amazing view. I was able to see both Wat Phra Kaew and Wat Pho all the way across the river. Beam was so scared as we walked around, and she kept saying "my legs are shake." Climbing back down the stairs was even scarier, but we all made it down alive, and then it was time to head back to The Mall and then drive to the restaurant for dinner.

I really don't know why my host family insisted I go for dinner with them rather than going to the AFS dinner. We didn't actually end up going to the ocean for dinner, since apparently it was too far away and the road was really bad, so we just stopped at a restaurnt partway there, which was kind of the same as the restaurant I went to on the lake the other night. We had all different kinds of seafood, and I ate Dom-Yum-Goon, or Thai Spicy Soup which is very famous in Thailand. Let's just say it was spicy. So spicy my lips started to burn and went numb. So I stopped eating it. On the way back to my host families home, I fell asleep in the car, and when I got back I just took a shower (and washed off all the nasty river water), checked my emails and then fell asleep. As far as I know I have no plans for the rest of today (Sunday). According to Cherry, she doesn't have to go to school tomorrow, something about her classes being cancelled. I asked her if I have to go, but she wasn't sure. She said I could go or I could not go. I kind of want to go just because I've missed my Thai Dance class for the last two weeks, and I wouldn't mind going to it this week. But on the other hand, Manda has the afternoon free from school tomorrow, so she invited me to go hang out with her, and I really would like to go since I didn't get to go to the AFS dinner last night. I think I will phone my coordinator today and see if I have to go to school. At least I get Tuesday off of school for sure, as it is Thai Mother's day.

Another neat thing about all the temples was that they all had signs outside saying no photography and take you shoes off and all that stuff, but the sign also specifically pointed out to make sure you don't point your feet at the Buddha inside.

I took a lot of neat pictures, which I've uploaded onto my photo page. However, here are a few of my favorites: