Photos and the Reasons Why

Camera: Nikon D300S
Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/640)
Aperture: f/1.8
Focal Length: 35 mm
ISO Speed: 640

This is the worlds most intrinsically valuable sacred artifact although it used to be thought of as nearly useless.
Years ago, in the old capital of Ayutthya, armies were invading and the shiny Buddha you can see in this picture was quickly covered in plaster.
Eventually, long after anyone knew about the subterfuge, the buddha was relocated to Chinatown.
At the time, it was just a 10 foot 5 ton rather ugly representation of Buddha.

Eventually a new temple was built and a pulley system was devised to lift the buddha up to the top. In the pouring rain, the system broken, letting the Buddha crash into the mud.

This was thought to be a bad tiding and everyone ran home. That night, a monk had a image in his sleep that there was a light inside his statue.

Upon waking, he went to the statue and found that some plaster had chipped off. Underneath the plaster was proof that this was not 5 tons of plaster and rigging, but 5 tons of solid 12 carat gold.

The Buddha now sits atop a rather beautiful 3 story temple. The second floor is a museum showing the path the Chinese immigrants to arrive in Bangkok. It was really well made and the scenery changed smoothly from room to room. You began in a field in China then walked into the hold of a wooden sailboat with videos playing in such a way that it looked like you could see immigrants when you looked up through the hatches. You left the boat onto the docks, then over a bridge into a night scene with a scale model of what the city looked like back at the time.

The entire thing would have been overwhelmingly beautiful if the accompanying information said anything other than saccharine sweet portrayal of how everything was always great for poor immigrants once they left miserable old China and came to beautiful plentiful Thailand where no one ever goes hungry.

Camera: Nikon D300S
Exposure: 0.005 sec (1/200)
Aperture: f/1.8
Focal Length: 35 mm
ISO Speed: 1600

The Chao Praya River runs directly through Bangkok. Temples and other important buildings line the banks creating a series of beautiful sights.

When night falls, the lights change these temples into even more exotic views.

This temple is Wat Arun, Temple of the Dawn. The intricate layers are indicative of it’s Khmer (Cambodian) style, which is fairly unusual in the area.

The central spire is representative of the Hindu mythological Mount Meru. The hindu’s believe that Mount Meru is the center of the universe and everything revolves around it.

Mt. Meru is hidden in the center of the earth and is 1.082 million km tall. It’s hidden well.