December 26th, 2010!

Boxing Day! Well, for all you people back in Canada and where ever else in the world you may be.  In Thailand, we don't celebrate it, and neither do the Laotian people.  How did I celebrate this day? Well, read on and I'll tell you.

We started out by going to....a temple!! Haha.  The temple that we went to was called HoPhraKeo, or Haw Pha Kaew.  Different spellings for different romanization.  Here's some history on the place.  It is a former temple in Vientiane, Laos.  It's interior is now a museum and a small shop.  Haw Phra Kaew was built between 1555 and 1556, on the orders of the king.  the temple housed the Emerald Buddha figurine, which the King had brought from Chiang Mai, then the capital of Lanna, to Luang Prabang.  When Vientiane was seized by Siam (now Thailand) in 1778, the figurine was taken to Thonburi and the temple was destroyed.  It was rebuilt by King Annouvong of Vientiane in the 19th century, and once again it was destroyed by Siamese forces when he rebelled against Siam to attempt to regain full independence of the kingdom.  The revered Buddha now resides in Wat Phra Kaew, Bangkok.  The temple was rebuilt for a third time by the French in the 1920's during colonization of French Indochina, which is the former building that stands today. 

Here's some pictures!

 The entrance to the ex-wat/museum.  Sadly, we went early in the morning so the sun was at just the right angle to make it impossible to get a good picture of it.  Which somewhat sucks.  But that's the temple.  It was pretty interesting. 

 Outside the temple there were these things.  I'm not totally sure what they are, but my best guess is that they are old tombstones, that were brought here so they wouldn't be destroyed by weather, and other forces.  I couldn't read them, because they were in Laos (which is quite similar to Thai in writing, but still really hard for me to understand).  There were quite a few of these around, which was cool to look at. 

 A spectacular door.  This is one of the doors (that is no longer used).  It is carved with religious symbols, and was pretty awesome to look at.  The detail in everything they do is quite amazing.  Inside the museum, we weren't allowed to take photos since most of the things were quite old.  One of the interesting things to note, was that many people would stick baht, or kip (Laos money) on the statues or in the doors to bring good luck.  A few of us tried to put baht coins in creative places, which in most cases resulted in it falling off, and us having to try again.  One of the guys was very determined to stick a coin in the dragons mouth, and spent 10 minutes attempting to get it to stay.  It was hilarious to watch his face light up when he got it places, only for it to fall a few seconds later. 

 This supposedly held the rum.  Kept it cool.  I say "supposedly" because I'm not sure if the guide was being truthful, or if he was joking around since we were all teens.  Either way, apparently this was used to keep the rum cold for the French colonists.  I joked that you wouldn't be able to get the rum from the very bottom of the rock, and my friends joked back that, "If you were determined enough, you'd get to it".  Haha fun times.

 My attempt to block out the sun so you could actually see the temple, and unknowingly sticking my hand in the picture.  Oops.

A image I stole off of eTravelPhotos.com, so credit to whoever took the picture.  This is what the temple looks like, pretty cool.  Sorry, there's not much to say about these pictures. 

Our next stop was at another temple.  We really enjoy going to temple's. :)  The temple that we went to was called Wat Si Saket.  Here's a little history on this particular temple.   Wat Si Saket was built in 1818 on the orders of King Anouvong, and may be the oldest temple still standing in Vientiane.  It was built in the Siamese style of Buddhist architecture, with a surrounding terrace and an ornate five-tiered roof, rather than in the Lao style, which kept it safe from the armies of Siam that sacked Vientiane in 1827.  The French restored the temple in 1924 and again in 1930.  Wat Si Saket features a cloister wall with more than 2000 ceramic and silver Buddha images.  I was told over 2 million, but that number seems too big to be true, and 2000 seems more correct. 

The entrance gate into the temple.  I thought it was pretty, and it had the name of the temple written in the language of Laos, which was always a bonus. 

Heading into the actual wat complex, this is the entrance way.  The entire place was surrounded by two walls.  The walls that you can see here contain the cloister that holds all of the images, though you can't see it from this side. 

Since we were at a wat, we had to wear the skirts, though this time it wasn't too bad.  Just about all of us had to wear them, so it wasn't too bad.  The lady was nice enough to match them to our outfits, its that or it was just a really good coincidence that none of the colors really clashed.  We thought that it would be a cool picture, with all of our matching skirts in a temple. 

A side view down one of the walls.  As you can tell, there are a lot of Buddha statues.  Each one of the little notches in the wall held about two statues, and then there were a bunch of big statues situated along the walls.  The big statues are wearing the traditional "rain costume".  Okay, so that's not the correct terminology, so I'll explain it better.   

Most Buddha statues will be adorned with a seasonal costume, depending on the season.  This is because the Emerald Buddha is always dressed in a seasonal costume.  It is a significant ritual held at a temple (The Emerald Buddha, not the average Joe Buddhas).  In this ritual, dress of the Deity is changed three times a year to correspond to the seasons.  In summer, it is a pointed crown of gold and jewels, and a set of jewelled ornaments that adorns the image from the shoulders to the ankles.  in winter, a meshed dressing gown or drapery made of gold beads, which covered from the neck down like a poncho is used.  During the rainy months, a top-knot headdress studded with gold, enamel and sapphires; the gold attire in the rainy season is draped over the left shoulder of the deity, only with the right shoulder left bare while gold ornaments embellish the image up to the ankles. 

So this is the "Rainy Season" costume, though not as ornate as the one that adorns the Emerald Buddha, the significance is still there. 

A peek into the little holes to see the images.  As I said earlier, there are two Buddha statues located in each hole.  These go all around the temple.  It's somewhat overwhelming, the amount of Buddha statues that you see here. 

The Boat.  This is a small model of a dragon boat.  I'm not totally sure of the significance of it, so I can't really create a comment on it. 

The creepiest Buddha image I have ever seen.  Now, you may not be able to see it from this picture, if you can zoom in, you might be able to see it...but this Buddha has eyes, which is not commonly done.  For the most part, the Buddha images are of the Buddha in prayer position, with his eyes closed, therefore seeing it with eyes came as quite the shock.  It also made it a bit creepy, because the Buddha seemed to watch you.  Not saying that's a bad thing, but it was really weird. 

Some of the wooden detailing that could be seen amongst the temple.  Once again, with another Buddha image. 

After we had finished this temple we headed back across the border to get back into Thailand.  Our short time in Laos was now officially over.  We had the BEST meal ever, as our last meal in Laos.  What did we have? Well due to the French influences that were still around, we had a French baguette, with Laos food on it-chicken, sprouts, some unidentified meat...pretty much a really really really good sandwich.  We all chowed down on those.  We also had a chance to do a bit of shopping, which was really cheap.  Most people bought suitcases, or bags.  I bought Laos beer (I haven't drunk it, but I'm saving it till I get home), and a purse.  It was cheap :) Haha. 

We headed back into Nongkhai where we went to a little market place.  We wandered through, stopping to look at the stalls, until we found a store that apparently we shouldn't have gone to.  No, there was nothing bad about it.  It was a Thai toy shop.  We all bought a variety of things, lots of little toys that turned out to be harder to figure out than we originally thought.  The lady who owned the store went to England as an exchange way back in the day (her words, not mine!) So she knew what it was like to be an exchange student.  It was pretty cool.  We took a few pictures, and I bought a few postcards before we headed back to the bus to get on our way to the hotel. 

A group shot of us standing by the sign.  I can't remember what the sign says though, I'll get the translation in a second. 

 ท่าเสด็จ means his posture....
สุดเบตแดนที่เมืองหนองคเย: Better Border town Nong Ye

Okay, so the translation doesn't exactly make sense, but its hard to figure it out.  Google translate may have failed me.  It's pretty much

A picture of me and Emi sitting on a bench, with the old style bike, and post box.  I just put it into sepia colors cause I thought it looked older that way :)

The ride to the hotel was pretty uneventful, we watched a Thai horror film, which was much more funny than scary, but a few parts did make the other girls scream, which scared the crap out of P'Gop.  It was hilarious.  At the hotel, we chilled, swam, talked, and then had food.  We were starting to feel the chill as night fell, and I knew that it was good I had pants to wear, and not shorts.  Though, it was pretty surprising having to admit that we were cold.  

Thats it for today!