Wat Kumaran, Koh Samui, Thailand. There is a mummified monk in the glass case.
Showing posts with label wats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wats. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Random Picture of the Week #8
Wat Kumaran, Koh Samui, Thailand. There is a mummified monk in the glass case.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Adventures!
OK, minor adventures. We decided to go for a drive down a road that leads out of town to see what we could see. We took Thanon Samranreun (click here for maps) north figuring we'd stop at some wats (temples) along the way. It was a holiday for the King's birthday, so the streets were fairly empty and a lot of businesses were closed. Of course, once we were sufficiently far from home we got a flat tire. Haha. We walked the motorbike down to an auto shop. They couldn't fix it for us but pumped it with air and sent us down the road to a bike repair shop. When we got there we found it impossible to explain that the tire was flat and that it needed to be fixed (the poor guys there clearly thought we were nuts). They kindly pumped a bit of air in both tires and oiled the chain. We had exhausted our miming abilities and decided to just drive around until it was flat again, which only took another 20 minutes.
All was well though, with the Nan river to our right and the train tracks to our left the route was rather picturesque. We eventually came upon a huge golf course and what was apparently a military site of some sort before turning back for the day. We stopped at two of the four wats we spied, enjoying being the only visitors that day. I'm not sure the names of the temples, will try to find out this week. Pics below:
Starfruit trees outside the walls.
Old-looking wats are the coolest!
If you peruse my Flickr pages you can see I'm obsessed with wat roof spires.
All was well though, with the Nan river to our right and the train tracks to our left the route was rather picturesque. We eventually came upon a huge golf course and what was apparently a military site of some sort before turning back for the day. We stopped at two of the four wats we spied, enjoying being the only visitors that day. I'm not sure the names of the temples, will try to find out this week. Pics below:
Starfruit trees outside the walls.
Old-looking wats are the coolest!
If you peruse my Flickr pages you can see I'm obsessed with wat roof spires.
Nagas guarding one of the entrances.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Sukhothai
We had a great time during our short trip to Sukhothai. If we had a car it would have taken around an hour to drive to it from Uttaradit but we took the bus which took two hours since it made so many stops. Unfortunately, most road signs do not have any English so we weren't able to keep track of what towns we were going through. Sometimes it was hard to figure out if the spots people were standing in at the side of the road were actual bus stops or if people could just flag down the bus anywhere.
We paid 120 baht (about $3.50) to get there on an aircon bus and half that to get back on a fan bus.
We came into New Sukhothai around dinner time and enjoyed some delicious sausage sandwiches at our guesthouse, J and J guesthouse before going exploring. Regular rooms were booked so we splurged on a bungalow for 900 baht with aircon. J and J had mixed reviews on the web so I wasn't expecting much but it was really quite nice. Staff spoke English and were friendly, the restaurant had extensive Thai and Western options and opened at 7 am, and our room was great. There was a pool as well but it rained the rest of that day.
Bungalows at J and J Guesthouse, Sukhothai.
We wandered around town a bit but there wasn't much to see. Since Sukhothai is so much bigger than Uttaradit I expected there to be a lot of bars and things to do but that was not the case at all-- in fact, the whole town seemed rather rundown. We woke up early the next morning to see the star attraction-- Old Sukhothai.
I won't rehash the whole history, if you're interested-- google it yourself! (Although, all the websites I found were pretty disappointing) I had done a fair amount of reading on the site when I took a course on Urban Archaeology in school so it was cool to finally visit it for real.
We hired a tuk-tuk driver to take us to the park and drive us around for the day. I'm glad we opted to hire a driver rather than rent bikes as the site was 12 kilometers away and then really spread out-- it is the ruins of a whole city after all! It was also extremely hot that day-- so the ride was nice. After more than three hours of sightseeing we were pretty worn out and finally headed back-- nice little trip! This is one of the reasons why we moved here-- now we get to see these sights at a leisurely pace, a little at a time, and really get to know this country. We're looking forward to more of these little adventures.
All of my pictures are on my Flickr page as usual but above are my favorites.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uy-qIO5OubDuRagB_rbLGPscWLtKYRGNCrrC5dQXbUJ0Weu_A2r01JjQ0c3STUi3zMi0qFSLTf2Hoxe2dJOK4Me6nlEUtCyNXKnkFZsW5QAtwPDk4qd8m5kJ_JfPmV-A67vY6MpnRBXUzQ_i54OFe5=s0-d)
We paid 120 baht (about $3.50) to get there on an aircon bus and half that to get back on a fan bus.
We came into New Sukhothai around dinner time and enjoyed some delicious sausage sandwiches at our guesthouse, J and J guesthouse before going exploring. Regular rooms were booked so we splurged on a bungalow for 900 baht with aircon. J and J had mixed reviews on the web so I wasn't expecting much but it was really quite nice. Staff spoke English and were friendly, the restaurant had extensive Thai and Western options and opened at 7 am, and our room was great. There was a pool as well but it rained the rest of that day.
Bungalows at J and J Guesthouse, Sukhothai.We wandered around town a bit but there wasn't much to see. Since Sukhothai is so much bigger than Uttaradit I expected there to be a lot of bars and things to do but that was not the case at all-- in fact, the whole town seemed rather rundown. We woke up early the next morning to see the star attraction-- Old Sukhothai.
I won't rehash the whole history, if you're interested-- google it yourself! (Although, all the websites I found were pretty disappointing) I had done a fair amount of reading on the site when I took a course on Urban Archaeology in school so it was cool to finally visit it for real.
We hired a tuk-tuk driver to take us to the park and drive us around for the day. I'm glad we opted to hire a driver rather than rent bikes as the site was 12 kilometers away and then really spread out-- it is the ruins of a whole city after all! It was also extremely hot that day-- so the ride was nice. After more than three hours of sightseeing we were pretty worn out and finally headed back-- nice little trip! This is one of the reasons why we moved here-- now we get to see these sights at a leisurely pace, a little at a time, and really get to know this country. We're looking forward to more of these little adventures.
All of my pictures are on my Flickr page as usual but above are my favorites.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
My first big outing...
As towns here are rather small, shooting over to another one is pretty easy. We stopped by for a short visit to this wat (temple) that happened to be having a performance. (photos in separate posts below) It's called Wihara Watphratansila Asana- when I find out what that means, I'll let you know. I'll definitely be going back there as the grounds were large and we weren't able to walk around much. There is also a small museum there I'd like to check out. For more pictures of this wat, visit this guy's site.
IMG_0803
Inside Wihara Watphratansila Asana. You can buy little bits of gold leaf and apply them to the statues.
Laplae, Uttaradit Province, Thailand
IMG_0799
A close up of the show. Thai performers with a traditional orchestra behind them. Wihara Watphratansila Asana, Laplae, Uttaradit, Thailand.
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