March | 2014 | rfljenksy – Practicing Simplicity

I’m back after 5 weeks of being away. I spent a week in Bangkok, Thailand where I met up with some great friends and mostly lounged and did a little sight-seeing. I then moved on to spend 3 weeks in Vietnam traveling from Hanoi to Ho Chi Min City. My final week was back in Nepal in a city about a 20 minute flight from Kathmandu. It was work but felt like a continuation of my vacation.

I will start off by incorporating some of my travel photos into some of the theme/photo challenges I missed out on while I was gone. The first one being Ailsa’s Travel Theme: Ancient.

While in Bangkok I went on a river boat tour and we stopped off at an old temple named Wat Arun that sat along the Chao Phraya River. It was amazing. The steps to climb to the top of the temple were about 8-10 inches wide and each step was at least 2 feet tall. Apparently this temple is a representation of Mount Meru which plays a large part in the Buddhist religion. There are supposedly 3 symbolic levels that emanate from the central prang. The first level relates to all realms of existence the middle is where all desires are found or gratified and the 3rd indicates six heavens within seven realms of happiness (according to wikipedia). This temple was built sometime in the17th century and is said to represent the radiations of the rising sun.

Though there are approximately 31,000 Buddhist temples spread out around Thailand, this was the most impressive one I saw on this trip. It’s named after the Indian God of Dawn, Arun and was most impressive right at sunset. Many of the “prang” are decorated with seashells and bits of porcelain which glitter in the sun and are stunning when the sun is rising or setting.

I hope you enjoy.