What Wat?
The word Wat means temple and is used in both Cambodia and Thailand. When I set out for my Christmas adventure this year, I knew one of my stops would be Angkor Wat in Cambodia, but I didn't realize just how wat-full my vacation would be. I spent my first full day in Thailand visiting some of the lesser Wats while waiting for my friend Melanie to arrive. The most impressive (Wat Inthara Wihan) had an enormous standing buddha, and the most peaceful was made of marble (Wat Benchama Bophit) and had gorgeous grounds.
The next day we did the mandatory Bangkok tourist items: Royal Palace and Wat Phra Kaeo (home of Thailand's emerald buddha), Wat Po (home of an enormous reclining buddha and the origins of Thai massage), and Wat Arun (temple of the dawn). The RP and WPK share grounds and together are visually overwhelming. It was hard to remember to get out from behind my camera and just enjoy the views.
On average the Thai temples were lacquered and sculpted and gorgeously ornamented with gold-leaf. The grounds of every temple had at least one stuppa (a bell-shaped building built to house and honor the remains of someone important in the temple's history...or at least that's what I understand about them.) Wat Arun was decorated with pottery! It was sort of mosaic-like in that respect, and it also had some really beautiful sculpting on its walls. It probably had the most killer stairs we met in Thailand...definitely not for those afraid of heights.
While the Wats are incredible, I was a bit watted out after two straight days of them, so we gave up on them until we reached Siem Reap and the Angkor temple complex. I couldn't help myself from pointing them out when we passed them though...."There's a Wat!" "Look, a Wat!" Melanie probably got really tired of this since there are over 300 temples in Chang Mai (almost as many as Bangkok) and we only really explored about eight in Thailand. This didn't stop us from snapping a few pics of the ones we passed though...and Melanie found an especially good one with large donald duck statues dotting the temple grounds.
We did seek out one temple in Chang Mai: Doi Suthep. It sits on a hill high over the city. The legend is that an elephant was sent to find a new home for an important buddhist relic, and it died on that hill so a Wat was built there. The sunshine was amazing in the inner courtyard, magnified by all the gold, and the views of the city were spectacular. I was also incidently blessed by a monk and spattered with holy water.
We also went to see one temple in Phnom Phen: the Silver Pagoda. It is on the grounds with their royal palace, and we saw some of the prettiest landscaping there. We also saw Cambodia's emerald buddha and the disco buddha here. We named it as such because this sitting buddha had some sort of weird disco laser lights doing some psychedelic moves over his head. It also prompted us to start singing, "Shake your buddha!" I can't quite figure out how anyone thought putting disco lights over the buddha's head could be reverent, but hey.
The next day we did the mandatory Bangkok tourist items: Royal Palace and Wat Phra Kaeo (home of Thailand's emerald buddha), Wat Po (home of an enormous reclining buddha and the origins of Thai massage), and Wat Arun (temple of the dawn). The RP and WPK share grounds and together are visually overwhelming. It was hard to remember to get out from behind my camera and just enjoy the views.
On average the Thai temples were lacquered and sculpted and gorgeously ornamented with gold-leaf. The grounds of every temple had at least one stuppa (a bell-shaped building built to house and honor the remains of someone important in the temple's history...or at least that's what I understand about them.) Wat Arun was decorated with pottery! It was sort of mosaic-like in that respect, and it also had some really beautiful sculpting on its walls. It probably had the most killer stairs we met in Thailand...definitely not for those afraid of heights.
While the Wats are incredible, I was a bit watted out after two straight days of them, so we gave up on them until we reached Siem Reap and the Angkor temple complex. I couldn't help myself from pointing them out when we passed them though...."There's a Wat!" "Look, a Wat!" Melanie probably got really tired of this since there are over 300 temples in Chang Mai (almost as many as Bangkok) and we only really explored about eight in Thailand. This didn't stop us from snapping a few pics of the ones we passed though...and Melanie found an especially good one with large donald duck statues dotting the temple grounds.
We did seek out one temple in Chang Mai: Doi Suthep. It sits on a hill high over the city. The legend is that an elephant was sent to find a new home for an important buddhist relic, and it died on that hill so a Wat was built there. The sunshine was amazing in the inner courtyard, magnified by all the gold, and the views of the city were spectacular. I was also incidently blessed by a monk and spattered with holy water.
We also went to see one temple in Phnom Phen: the Silver Pagoda. It is on the grounds with their royal palace, and we saw some of the prettiest landscaping there. We also saw Cambodia's emerald buddha and the disco buddha here. We named it as such because this sitting buddha had some sort of weird disco laser lights doing some psychedelic moves over his head. It also prompted us to start singing, "Shake your buddha!" I can't quite figure out how anyone thought putting disco lights over the buddha's head could be reverent, but hey.
posted by Claire | 10:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home