Click on images below to enlarge:
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| Di Yin within the flowery entrance gate.
| A Buddha inside a temple. (Obviously, this is not the most important
temple in the complex.)
| Detail of a temple's roof.
| In a pavilion, diagrams dissecting the parts of humans and monsters.
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| More stupas, these decorated with mosaic tiles.
| The Reclining Buddha, the reason this temple is famous. It's huge: 140
feet long and 50 feet high.
Head-to-feet shot.
| A feet-to-head picture of the reclining Buddha.
The Buddha is made
from brick that was then covered with plaster and finally with gold leaf.
| Murals covered the full height of the walls facing the reclining Buddha.
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This excellent statue reminds me of the Mad Hatter from Alice in
Wonderland.
There's another flower gateway in the background.
| An array of Buddhist statues in another temple in the complex.
| Carved monuments in a courtyard. Also, don't miss the line of Buddhas in
the far hallway.
| A row of Buddhas in a different hallways opening on this courtyard.
Excellent simply because such a perfect row shot is hard to come by
(even if this particular one isn't pretty).
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| Another row of Buddhas, elsewhere, this set clothed.
| A Buddha statue in a minor prayer hall. It could almost be a casket.
| A monk inside the largest temple in the complex. If this complex wasn't
named The Temple of the Reclining Buddha, I would've guessed that this
prayer hall was the most important one.
| A large, stitched-together photo of the temple.
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| Suam Lum Night Bazaar/Market
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| The entrance to the Suam Lum Night Bazaar that's closest to the metro
station.
| A map of the night market. Although the map shows the market divided into
zones (e.g., clothing and accessories, arts and handicrafts), I couldn't
tell the difference when walking around. Everywhere seemed to be selling
the same kind of stuff.
| An enormous "you are here" sign. I was never actually there -- I think
the sign's above the parking lot.
| One of the market's streets.
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| An example of some of the stalls along a street.
| Most of the stalls, however, are in corridors in the buildings, not facing
the street.
| Another sample corridor of shops at the night market.
Note the
t-shirt at left: "YouTube myspace and I'll Google your Yahoo."
| The prettiest items for sale I saw in the market.
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| Garishly colored porcelain statues for sale.
| One end of the market was mostly beer gardens (and restaurants that looked
like beer gardens). This part is nicely decorated with lights strung
between trees.
| A really cool carved building near the west end of the market.
Excellent -- it looks like something right out of Indiana Jones.
Look at the full-sized image then zoom-in more.
| The huge food court in the west end of the market.
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| If you look very carefully at this picture, you'll see wisps of mist
above the seating area. Strung over the open space are cords emitting
water, helping the area cool.
| A short movie of one of the musical performers on the stage in front of
the food court. I'm amused that there's a projection of a soccer game
behind the performers. I'm also surprised that there was live
entertainment on a Tuesday night. I made this movie as evidence. It's at
a low resolution because there's not to much to see.
| The vendor from which I bought part one of my dinner:
som tam (a.k.a. papaya salad), a common Thai dish.
I could
identify the vendors of this dish from a distance because they're the only
people with a mortar and pestle.
| Som tam (a.k.a. papaya salad).
When I ordered this, I showed the
woman my chowhound passport, a card that said in Thai "Please bring me the
serious, authentic food . . . not the tourist stuff." She gave me a funny
look like she was confused and didn't understand and called another women
over. The other woman read the card, nodded, and said something to the
first. One asked me (in English) whether I wanted it normally spicy (or
something that I took to mean that). I said yes. She then shows me a
palm-full of chilies. I blanch. They laugh. I make a motion for them to
give me half that much.
This was good and fairly spicy, yet I've
had spicier papaya salads before so I probably could've handled a bit more
(though undoubtedly not twice as many chilies).
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| One of the blended fruit juice stands.
| Dragonfruit juice. Quite good.
| One of the stands that specializes in pad thai. All the ingredients are
nicely arranged up front.
| Pad thai, the staple Thai noodle dish. I ordered mine with shrimp, which
were paste-y (yes, paste-y), not food at all (severe freezer burn?). As
for the pad thai, it had much more egg than I'm used to seeing in the
states. (I even looks vaguely like an omelette.) As with most Thai
dishes I've had here, it was too sweet. Also, I was a little scared as
the woman added lots of chilies, but that worked out fine.
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| Lychee juice. Also good.
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