I've been very bad at keeping up my blog lately... So, the biggest news is that I've extended my trip in Asia for another few days. I thought that a week wasn't enough time in Laos, so I added on another week to my trip.
Last time I wrote, I had just left Pai and was heading to Chiang Rai. In Chiang Rai, I saw the most beautiful temple in the world. After that, I went over to Laos. We took a slow boat for two days down the Mekong River to get to Luang Prabang in Laos. From Luang Prabang, I went to Vang Vieng and finally down to the capital city of Laos, Vientiane.
Here are some pictures of the most beautiful temple in the world - The White Temple in Chiang Rai (also called Wat Rong Khun). It's a very modern (and somewhat cryptic) temple, and it's still being built. They estimate that the temple will be finished in 80 years.
It's beautiful, right? That's me and Dan in front of the temple. Dan is from Manchester, and I met him on the bus from Pai to Chiang Rai. He wasn't exactly the nicest of people... In fact, he actually couldn't say anything nice at all. When I asked him to say something nice for once, he was silent for something like 20 minutes because he couldn't think of anything to say. That being said, we ended up hanging out for close to 2 weeks and became pretty good friends. Everyone has their quirks.
These are two more pictures of the hands reaching up from the ground in front of the temple. There seems to be a pretty morbid theme here. There are skulls everywhere, and the paintings inside the main temple (which you aren't allowed to take pictures of) are pretty amazing criticisms about materialism and our consumerist culture. When someone first told me that there were paintings of spiderman inside, I was pretty disgusted. However, the paintings really are beautiful. There are gas lines and blood dripping into open mouths with the burning twin towers in the background and spiderman crouching in the corner wondering if he should come save us yet. This temple is a really powerful place.
This man stands at the entrance to the walkway up to the temple. He's pretty viking-like and powerful-like, don't you think? I like how the artwork in this temple pulls figures and symbols from so many different places.
This is me with one of the White Temple Buddhas.
This is the little knob that you use to open the gate on the fence to leave the white temple. There were skulls everywhere. There were even trees with screaming skulls hanging off of them.
This is the part of the temple that's not finished yet. There are no shiny mirror things on it, and the inside is entirely empty. I'll have to come back in 80 years to see it...
This glorious place, my friends, is the bathroom. Most other places in Thailand just have you pee in a hole in the ground.
OK, internet here in Laos isn't very fast, so uploading these pictures is taking forever. I'll just put up this post for now, and I'll add stories from Laos once I get back to Bangkok (which will be in only 12 hours!). So, here I go aboard the lovely sleeper train to Bangkok... let's hope all of my things don't get stolen - I've heard some horror stories about these sleeper trains.
Last time I wrote, I had just left Pai and was heading to Chiang Rai. In Chiang Rai, I saw the most beautiful temple in the world. After that, I went over to Laos. We took a slow boat for two days down the Mekong River to get to Luang Prabang in Laos. From Luang Prabang, I went to Vang Vieng and finally down to the capital city of Laos, Vientiane.
Here are some pictures of the most beautiful temple in the world - The White Temple in Chiang Rai (also called Wat Rong Khun). It's a very modern (and somewhat cryptic) temple, and it's still being built. They estimate that the temple will be finished in 80 years.
It's beautiful, right? That's me and Dan in front of the temple. Dan is from Manchester, and I met him on the bus from Pai to Chiang Rai. He wasn't exactly the nicest of people... In fact, he actually couldn't say anything nice at all. When I asked him to say something nice for once, he was silent for something like 20 minutes because he couldn't think of anything to say. That being said, we ended up hanging out for close to 2 weeks and became pretty good friends. Everyone has their quirks.
This man stands at the entrance to the walkway up to the temple. He's pretty viking-like and powerful-like, don't you think? I like how the artwork in this temple pulls figures and symbols from so many different places.
OK, internet here in Laos isn't very fast, so uploading these pictures is taking forever. I'll just put up this post for now, and I'll add stories from Laos once I get back to Bangkok (which will be in only 12 hours!). So, here I go aboard the lovely sleeper train to Bangkok... let's hope all of my things don't get stolen - I've heard some horror stories about these sleeper trains.
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