I've been going through my pictures bit by bit from studying abroad for the photo contests I want to enter and these are just some that make me really happy.
these first 4 were from our second village homestay, atop of the mountain Doi Lang. These pictures were taken on Doi Chang (Elephant Mountain), when my brother from my family took a group of us to a coffee place, a little wat area in a bamboo forest, and a field of beautiful flowers with an amazing view of all the surrounding mountains.
this photogenic monkey was at the Chiang Mai Zoo. He was so funny and was a great model haha
these 4 pictures above are from a field trip we took for our Buddhism class to various temples in Chiang Mai and just outside of the city. The first 2 were taken at Doi Suthep, which is at the top of a mountain in the city. Since Chiang Mai is completely surrounded by mountains, it's the only light you can see in the sky (aside from the stars of course) and it looks so cool. The story of the temple is (and i don't have all the details 100% correct) there was an elephant carrying bone relics of the Buddha a long, long time ago. He dropped it by accident, and one small piece fell off in the city of Chiang Mai, where Wat Suan Dohk was built; the larger piece was then carried up to the top of the mountain by the elephant. Once he reached the top, he just fell over and died, and they built Doi Suthep in that spot. the other 2 pictures were taken at a wat in a forest (I forget the name of it). The broken statues were in the Buddha graveyard, where people bring their old and worn Buddha statues instead of throwing them away.
These 4 were taken in Cambodia, at Wat Pinom Chiso. It's an ancient temple that apparently only like 20 people have climbed in the past 15 years or so- well, climbed the ancient stairs, which is extremely hard because they're made of giant stones and it's really steep; most people tend to use another stairway that was built later on that is probably 10 times easier (we didn't see it). The monk in these pictures, Rainie, traveled with us for the day. Our resident director Chhunny used to be a monk and he knew him from when they lived in Thailand and stayed at the same temple.
this is from the same day as Pinom Chiso. We went to many different temples, going around Cambodia for 14+hours. It was exhausting but so interesting. We were in what is thought to be the most ancient city in Southeast Asia, which I'm pretty sure is called Angkor Borei (i know it begins with a B). Apparently in ancient Chinese scripts the hub of ancient Asia was described as an island, so originally it was thought to be in Vietnam, I believe, but then historians realized it was actually in Cambodia because during the flood season this area basically turns into an island.
these last pictures are from another excursion day in Cambodia. The first couple were taken when we stopped in some random village town outside of Phnom Penh to see the Mekong and see where all the veggies and other produce came from; the last couple of pictures were taken at a Lotus farm, which was also the site for an ancient Cambodian village. the kid in the last picture went and picked some lotus flowers for us to eat. Cambodians really like them, but unfortunately i wasn't really fond of it. it kind of just tasted like plants and dirt.
