Wat Po and a dried fish market

Now that my friends, is a BIG Buddha.

I really love Wat Po.
Its less extravagant than the famous Emerald Buddha temple next door, but its gardens and outbuildings are serene.
The Reclining Buddha is BIG.
Everyone loves a BIG Buddha.
Here are a few more pics:

Behind the reclining Buddha, there are 108 bowls. You pay 20 Baht, and get a little dish of tiny coins which you drop into the bowls, one by one, and make a wish. I wished for a good result from a CAT Scan my dad just had.

Big mother of Pearl Buddha feet.

Though the reclining Buddha is the center piece of Wat Po, the grounds within its walls have beautiful gardens, small individual shrines and minor temples with smaller Buddha statues

One particular shrine, tucked away in a corner, looked a little odd when I saw it from a distance. No prizes for figuring out what the statue represents:

Well as you saw earlier, they WERE big feet.

After I left the temple I chanced upon an alley running off the street facing the gates. It led me to a dried fish market and series of Thai fast food stalls.

Worth a few pics:

When I first walked into the gloomy warehouse, I thought I was in a spice market. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I realized that these were bags of dried crustaceans, some smaller than the nail on a baby's baby fingernail.

Everything was dried, so there was no bad smells of rotting flesh in the humid heat. No bad smells until I came to this evil set of concoctions.

Good God, that looked, and smelled nasty.

I know, I know the ultimate cliche shot, but if a fish market isn't cat heaven I don't know what is.

Though my little foray into this market wasn't by any means earth shattering or stupendous, I enjoyed it. It would have been easy to walk by the alley, rushing to the next stop on a well worn tourist trail, and missed this little window into Thai life. I think it pays to keep your eyes open and have a little curiosity. Provided you stay safe, and don't venture into places where bad stuff can happen, you can be rewarded beyond a surface experience. Going around the world as I do, I think I can only manage to bear the hotel-airport- meetings-restaurant merry-go-round, because of these little episodes of seeing, feeling and smelling the cultures that I visit. That's not to say I have any stupendous insight as a result, just that the world has a little more colour and context than the bland grayness which seems to characterize modern day business travel.

Love to all

T