The Sanctuary of Truth!

The next morning, Dustin and I woke up bright and early to head to Pattaya, Thailand to see the Sanctuary of Truth. It's an all-wood temple decorated with Hindu and Buddhist motifs. They started building it in 1981 and will be finished in 2050. This is the reason behind the hard hat I am wearing in a couple of pictures. It was not a fashion statement.

We took a van to Pattaya, which somehow managed to cost $3 each, which was weird. The buses stopped very frequently, but the van went straight to Pattaya with zero stops. It was a similar van to the Van From Hell and made me want to say, "We're back in the van!"

Also, the girl in front of us was popping her boyfriend's zits which was horrifying.

Dustin saw a sign to the Sanctuary of Truth and we got off the van, before the terminal. This meant we did not know where to go when we needed to return to Bangkok...Whoops. More on that later. It also lead to a lot of wandering in the heat, which could have been avoided.

We ended up taking a weird truck taxi, which we were not kidnapped from. It was a miracle. We made it to the Sanctuary of Truth.

We paid for our ticket and headed down the hill. At the bottom, they said, "We are having a dancing performance." Dustin tried to avoid it but they looked very angry and forced us to watch the dancing.

The female dancers were pretty good but the male dancers were pretending to fight and it was very cheesy. They wanted us to tip after the dancing. I did not tip since we were forced into attendance and had not been given a choice.

The temple itself is amazing. It's entirel carved out of wood and it's beautifully done! If you would like to read about the temple itself, this is the official website.

This is the introduction: "The building was constructed according to ancient Thai ingenuity and every square inch of the building is covered with wooden carve sculpture. The purposes of decoration with wooden carve sculptures are to use art and culture as the reflection of Ancient Vision of Earth, Ancient Knowledge, and Eastern Philosophy. With in this complex, visitors will understand Ancient Life, Human Responsibility, Basic Thought, Cycle of living, Life Relationship with Universe and Common Goal of Life toward Utopia."

These were the dancers

Even some of the trees nearby were carved, which was cool.

There are flowers hanging on a lot of the statues.

The 7 headed snakes again!

There was so much detail in every piece of carving. It was so amazing. Pattaya was not the...best place in the world, but it was worth traveling to just to see this temple!

This is the first hall, which is intended to symbolize the universe and the earth.

I mean look at that! Incredible!

The Thai royal family.

These hands were interesting...and a little scary.

The ceiling was amazing, too! Everything was amazing.

Here I am with my ridiculous and required hard hat.

They had elephant rides, which was unnecessary...

And lots of elephant statues of course!

It's difficult for me to narrow down my pictures, so there are a lot in this blog!

Here I am without my hard hat, thank heavens!