The Adventures of Kerri & Matt

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.

So we didn’t actually see that much wildlife in Myanmar. Just lots of these birds.

A couple squirrels.

And giant grasshoppers.

That’s Matt’s foot trying, and failing, to be useful for scale. It was big.

This temple was very visible from a distance because of the gold covering the top.

That made it very shiny in the sunset.

It was still quite shiny up close.

This temple had quite a bit of extra gold on the other corner posts.

Inside there were a number of carvings. They told stories which we didn’t know.

This was also the first time we saw gargoyles on any temples. Most just had drain holes on the side but no extensions away from the edge of the building.

Inside was a very shiny sitting Buddha.