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  • Tag: buddha

    • sukhothai

      Posted at 7:13 am by jasminedesirees, on July 7, 2014

      My favourite way to travel is to have a few things in mind that you want to do, but also to keep things pretty open, so when you get to your destination, you can talk to locals and other travelers and figure out which places they think are must-see. Some of the coolest places I’ve visited have just been word of mouth referrals, of places I’d never even heard of before.

      So when we got to Thailand, I heard over and over that we should check out Ayutthaya or Sukhothai, they are both national parks with lots of cool temples, and that is where all of the Buddhas around Thailand are made. Ayutthaya also used to be the capital of Thailand, before Bangkok.

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      Sukhothai is the older one, some of the temples are more like ruins, and Ayutthaya is the newer one. I decided I’d rather see the more historical one, so we set out from Chiang Mai for a 5 hour bus ride to go check it out. I’d heard from several other travelers how hellish the bus ride was, but I really didn’t think it was that bad, although I did have a good book and a sleeve of Oreos to keep me company.

      Sukhothai itself is pretty quiet (although we were there during the low season) it’s not super touristy, and there isn’t a ton of other things to do except for check out the park, so two days there was a good amount of time.

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      We were told to come first thing in the morning, since the Buddhas all face East, and they photograph better with the sun shining on them. We rented bikes (around 100TBH for the day) and pedaled around the park for a few hours. The park itself was so beautiful and peaceful, and after so many days of walking (jungle trekking) it was actually really fun to just be on a bike.

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      The park itself is divided into 3 different sections, and you have to pay 100TBH (around $3) to get into each one. Once we’d gone around the park multiple times, we decided to go ride our bikes around town for a bit. We saw a sign for a waterfall and cave, so we set off pedaling down a deserted dirt road, with no idea where we were going.

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      About 20 minutes later, we saw another sign for the waterfall, but this one mentioned that it was actually 30 miles down the road. The sun was fully overheard, and it was starting to get really hot, plus there was an unfortunate incident with a spider (I almost veered into the ditch because it was the biggest spider that exists in the world. Derek insists it was a crab from the lake right beside the road, but he was not blessed with my eagle vision) so we decided to head back.

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      We went back to the park for sunset, even though it was a bit cloudy it was still pretty. I would definitely recommend going to Sukhothai if you have time on your trip, I would absolutely go back, especially in November when they have the Loi Krathong Lantern Festival.

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      Posted in Thailand, travel | 3 Comments | Tagged buddha, national park, sukhothai, Thailand, travel
    • white temple

      Posted at 8:10 pm by jasminedesirees, on June 30, 2014

      The most beautiful temple we saw in Thailand (and we saw A LOT) was the White Temple. It was part of our day long trip to Chiang Rai, where we also saw the Golden Triangle, crossed the border to Laos, and visited some of the hill tribes.

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      I had seen pictures of the White Temple, but they were always small and it didn’t look very impressive, so I wasn’t that excited about it. But as soon as we jumped out of the van, and saw it in person, I was absolutely stunned.

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      It’s completely white, and every single inch of it is inlaid with metal and glass mosaic tiles. It had been cloudy all morning, but as we were walking up to the temple, the sun came out, and it was absolutely blinding. You couldn’t look directly at it without sunglasses on.

      The temple was designed by one of Thailand’s most famous artists to honour the current King of Thailand, and it’s taken 7 years so far to complete. It’s not finished yet, and parts of it were damaged in a recent earthquake.

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      The premise is showing the difference between heaven and hell, heaven being the immaculate perfection of the temple, and hell being the thousands of hands reaching up, and the demons decorating the different corners of the temple grounds.

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      It’s totally gorgeous, and really interesting as well, definitely check it out if you are interested in art or religious culture.

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      Posted in Thailand, travel | 1 Comment | Tagged buddha, buddhism, temple, temple grounds, Thailand, travel, white temple
    • wat pho

      Posted at 6:02 pm by jasminedesirees, on June 17, 2014

      For some reason, even though we travelled 19 hours to get here, we weren’t jet lagged at all. We got to our Bangkok hotel at 11:30 p.m., and woke up the next day ready to go out and do things.

      We ate some random street food for breakfast, and then found our way to the SkyTrain. The only thing I really had in mind to see was the King’s Palace, but you need to take a water taxi to get there, which was pretty cool in itself, and there are lots of different stops along the way.

      We ended up jumping out to see Wat Pho, a really beautiful temple, most famous for its reclining Buddha sculpture, which is completely massive, and completely gorgeous, but it had lots of other neat things too, including rows and rows of gold Buddha statues that we stumbled upon by accident while we were looking for the exit.

      The ornate detail that goes into these temples is astounding, it takes hundreds of years to build them, and then it’s constant maintenance to make sure they stay that way. There were people re-doing the mosaic tiles on little areas all over the massive temple complex.

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      Posted in Thailand, travel | 3 Comments | Tagged bangkok, buddha, Thailand, travel, wat pho
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