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| More Buddhas, and more mother of pearl inlay work. This is
in a different building on another tour. In the third, you can see
my reflection taking the picture. Incredibly tiny pieces of MOP,
creating fantastic pictures. |
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| The monk looking at Buddha is my favorite shot, one of the
best pictures I took my entire three months. The monk was touring
like the rest of us, he was even holding a camera in front, hidden in this
view. And more of the elephants. |
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| And did I say more of the elephants? This Buddha is
the largest cast bronze seated Buddha in Thailand. The measurements are in
the third picture. The arm fell off at one point, and was part of
the restoration. When they first built it, it was outdoors, stayed
that way for decades. The last picture and the first of the next row
are from another ruin. This was curious because of the plastic dolls
left along the edge by way of offerings. Literally Thai versions of
Barbie and such. Didn't know what was going on there. |
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| These boats are their version of tug boats. All they
do is tug. You'll notice the Fisher-Price like toy boat hook in the
back, holding the rope. Yes, this is how they tugged the
barges. Yours truly had a simple question for our tour guide.
"How do they stop the barge?" "Well, they unhook the
ropes from the front, the tug moves around back, retie/rehook the ropes,
then slow the barge to a stop."
You must remember I grew up along the Ohio river, spent many years
watching river barge traffic ply the waters. Tugboats there are solidly
connected to the barges they're moving. A real problem along barge
traffic rivers is runaway barges, that is, barges floating without a
tugboat attached to them. They run into things, like bridge abutments,
sometime knocking down roads.
It took me a long time to stop laughing. To their credit, the
barge strings didn't seem more than 3 long, at least in this river. And
I'm guessing they've been doing this for years. But it still seems
wrong. |
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| That bridge in the daytime. And more Buddhas.
The last picture shows all seven Buddha "styles" from the Thai
Buddhist tradition. This was a set up where you could give an offering,
and help by ladling a small amount of the oil into the lamp of the Buddha
of your choice, to keep his(her?) flame going.
In the third, a guy was draping the red shawl as we
watched. And through the doors behind that Buddha, was a room in the
temple, with another Buddha. |
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| Bats in the belfry of a temple. For folks interested,
I've a short mpeg of them flying. And a short mpeg of Liz and I
flying, on motorcycle taxies through night traffic in Bangkok. And a
short audio mpeg of the screaming betting going on during a Manila
cockfight we attended. And maybe some others stuff, too large to
post here. I can mail the mpegs directly to anyone asking.
Lastly, another food shot for all of Liz's friends worried about her
obsession with food during our stay in the Philippines. This would
end it. A nice collection of grasshoppers, grubs and other beetles,
all crispy fried. I think the proprietor was extolling the vintage and
virtues of her tree caterpillars to me. Snacks
anyone?? |
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