The Adventures of Kerri & Matt

Playing cards are illegal in Myanmar. They can be confiscated at immigration.

But this temple was decorated with diamonds and hearts.

And spades.

And clubs.

And Buddhas. Because there are Buddhas everywhere. Although bringing in items decorated with Buddhas is also illegal.

We are not sure if we broke this law by bringing in an e-reader that contained a library copy of Buddhism for Dummies, which has a Buddha on the cover. But when we entered the country the last book read was Southeast Asia on a Shoestring, so it was not currently being displayed.

This Buddha did not fit.

The pink in the corner is Kerri trying to squeeze past his knee.

His knees weren’t even really in the same room.

He had two neighbouring Buddhas, which were smaller but still huge.

The forth Buddha didn’t even fit sitting up, so he had to lie down.

He was lying much flatter than most reclining Buddhas. But given that the reclining Buddha is supposed to show him dying, this position does seem a bit more realistic than propped up on his arm like he usually is.

Matt spent no time looking at the outside of this temple but charged straight in to get off of the hot stones.

Kerri hopped (respectfully of course) around the outside. It was not worth it.

We would find it much easier to be respectful if we were allowed to wear shoes. Or at least socks.

Inside were more very large Buddhas.

The stone corridors were really dark even though it was very bright outside.

Somehow they still had beautiful carvings and paintings covering all the walls. I don’t know what the point of this was before flashlights were invented. It probably had something to do with karma.

This bell shaped pagoda was one of the oldest, built in 1059AD.

It is located next to the very wide slow flowing river.

It looks pretty much the same all the way around.

This made us regret walking all the way around it, because the tiles were very hot in the sun.