Temples Galore

My favorite thing about traveling is experiencing other cultures and religions . . . so we spent a lot of our time visiting temples.  Our first day in Singapore we visited a Hindu temple.  We lucked out as they were in the middle of washing their idols, which was really interesting to watch

In Thailand, we visited a lot of Buddhist temples . . .the first one was located outside the floating market . . .

It had a beautiful little cemetary . . .

The rest of the temples were in Bangkok. . .we visited all of th famous temples and some that aren't so famous . . . but they were all unique and beautiful . . .  The major temples you could get to by the commuter boat.  As you can see, the monks also used this mode of transportation. . .

Here is Wat Arun (Temple of Dawn). . .  this was my favorite temple . . .

These stairs were so steep . . . the pictures don't do it justice . .. I was so happy when we made it to the top. . . but then I realized I had to go back down! 

At least the view was amazing . . .

Here are the rest of the temple grounds. . .

I love the orange draped over the buddhas. . .

Here is Wat Pho (Temple of Reclining Buddha) . . .it was amazing to see the size of this Buddha. . . very impressive. .  .

Wat Phra Kaew and the Grand Palace . . . . 

You weren't allowed to take pictures in this temple . . .but outside of it I was able to receive some "bliss" by shaking holy water off of the flower onto my head :-)

And Hunter was able to show off his strength. . . .

The Grand Palace was beautiful . . .

Beyond the beauty and grandure of the temples and palace, we loved meeting such warm, kind, and happy people in Thailand . . .you can tell they are trying to live in the "heavenly state" that is revered by Buddhists. 

We loved seeing school children incorporating meditation into their day . . .

And we noticed the calmness of the monks. . .no matter where they were or what they were doing. . .

We definitely were able to see a lot of culture and religion on our trip!