Wat Po! [Touristy Stuff Pt. 2]

I stepped off the boat and the madness began.  I had finally arrived at a true tourist destination.  The place was packed with westerners and a few eastern tourists sprinkled in for good measure.  On the dock, I counted at least 4 souvenir shops, and once I got off the dock, delicious smelling food swirled all around me. 

Wat Po and the Grand Palace are within a block of each other, so this looked like a prime-time tourist destination.  I passed row after row of street vendors and came to the temple's entrance.  Luckily for me, no dress code was being enforced, so I paid my 50 baht ($1.50) and entered the temple.

One disclaimer -- at this point, my phone's battery was starting to die (it had made 6 hours of heavy use thus far).  There is more to this place than I have captured here, but you'll get the general point...

Why so excited about Wat Po, you ask?  Well, it's a giant freaking Buddha laying on its side!!  It's also called the "Reclining Buddha."  This was awesome!  My guess is that it's about 50 yards long and 30 yards tall.  The scale was ridiculous.

[The bottom of the feet were covered in this impressive artwork]

Inside the temple, all along the walls, detailed artwork snaked up and down the walls...

This was the main temple (is that stating the obvious?) in the courtyard; however, there were several other smaller areas lining the grounds.  Again, I didn't capture as many of these as I would've liked, but you get the general point.  One other thing that I found interesting was the abundance of cats and kittens.  They harmlessly cruised around the grounds.  Some looked kinda scary, but for the most part, they seemed in reasonably good health.  I just found it interesting that at one of the most impressive temples in the city, animals were allowed to chill out.  That would definitely not fly in the States!  Can you imagine the panic that would erupt if a stray dog walked through Independence Hall?

Wat Po was my final stop for the day.  As I made back to the water taxi, I stopped in a couple of gift shops and picked up some really cool paintings.  Jeff & Rach -- this is what I've mailed to you.  I didn't really want to carry them around through my next 7 stops.  That reminds me of a funny story.  When I visited the UPS store to mail the goods, I also decided to send some clothes that I haven't been using in order to lighten my load.  I added my Adidas gym shorts to the list of goods being mailed (I've been using my swim trunks when I work out b/c my hotel has a pool, too).  Well, it's a customs violation to send counterfeited goods.  I told the guy, "No -- these aren't counterfeit; I bought them in the US!" (which is true).  He didn't believe me, and wouldn't let me ship them.  D'oh...