Showing posts with label temple. Show all posts
Showing posts with label temple. Show all posts

Wat Rong Khun

Wat Rong Khun is also known as the White Temple and it's located in Chiang Rai. We booked a mini van that comes with a driver and a guide, and it takes about 3 hours to get there from Chiang Mai.


Along the route, we stop by a hot spring and had some boiled eggs, which came with a little pack of soy sauce. The hot spring is only this tiny fountain and it's only big enough for boiling eggs.

According to our guide, this temple had been designed by a Thai, who had traveled very widely to other countries. His exposure to outside cultures led him to create this very unique and modern temple. At this moment, the construction of this temple is still going on. And this is perhaps the only temple that you'll find sculptures and paintings of movie and cartoon creatures. Although being a modern temple, as a respect, visitors should still be dressed modestly while inside the temple building.


The White Temple



At the first section of the entrance bridge of the temple, the sculptures below represent hell. Thus, our guide told us not to stop here but continue to walk quickly across.


Beautiful details of the architecture.



Unfortunately, photography is not allowed inside the temple. Its interior is very different from those traditional ones.


Wishing well


Wishing trees



This golden building within the White Temple premises houses the toilets. There's the squatting type toilet bowls and there's also the western style (sitting type) toilet bowls.


Basins outside the toilet cubicles.


Golden structure beside the golden toilet building.

Wat Phra That Doi Suthep

Legend has it that a king put a relic on a white elephant and prayed for a sacred place. The elephant climbed Doi Suthep mountain, trumpeted three times, turned around three times, knelt down, and died. Then, the king built a new temple to house the relic on this spot chosen by the elephant.



To get to the temple, we took one of these red-taxis from the town area. It costed us 50 Thai Baht per person per direction. The journey took about 40 minutes and the hot weather made it quite suffocating while riding in the vehicle. There are two rows of benches on the back of the truck and the passengers sit on them facing each other.



After walking up a long slope, which has stalls selling local food and souvenirs on both sides, we had to conquer this really long flight of stairs to see the temple! When I reach the top, I was out of breath... I really should exercise more.



Shoes are not allowed in the temple and visitors should be respectful by wearing long pants or skirts.


The white elephant statue


These large bells are rung by believers to bring good luck.


Cute monk figures around the temple.


Young girls dancing at the temple.


Left: Mom?
Right: Charms for visitors to pen their wishes.




As we're walking back down the slope to the taxi pickup area, we paused at some stalls to do the tourist things.