rezar

Last weekend, Levi and I dropped a rather lare sum of money partying on a tourist island, so for this holiday weekend we were determined to keep it cheap. Levi took a look at a map and led the way to Chaiya, a town about an hour northwest from Surat. It's a beautiful drive on the motorbike, all palm groves and rice paddies. When we arrived, the tenth-century temple we were seeking presented itself to us with little effort on our part, along with two unexpected others.

The first was Wat Long, a largely ruined but beautifully geometrical temple across the street from a high school and pretty much in someone's front yard. Estimates place it in the ninth or tenth centuries, but it's uncertain. The second was Wat Phra Borom That Chiaya, a modern temple and monastery complex. Today is Mothers' Day in Thailand, deemed thus and particularly important because it is the queen's birthday. The place was full of families praying and laying flowers, presumably in her honer (granted, this is only an outsider's conjecture).

The third temple was the one we came seeking, tenth-century Wat Keaw, the Greet Temple. And green it is. At the threshold, the temperature plummets and the air is dense with centuries of moisture and decay. The seated Buddhas, now wanting for heads and arms, are dressed in thick layers of green moss and cobwebs. It's and eerie and beautiful place.
On my new little tablet, photo uploading to blogger is exceptionally tedious, so click the link below to check out the pics from today.

Chiaya