A Nice Surprise!

    With my day off from school the family planned an outing to a temple...no surprise there. When in SE Asia the locals always want to take visitors to the temple.  Perhaps I've seen 1000 temples and there is a fair amount of differences between them. For example ethnic differences make Thai, Vietnamese, Burmese, and Chinese, etc., temples unique.
    It was a significant drive.  We left the house at 9;30 a.m. and, with a stop for lunch, arrived at 1:00. The main temple did not open until 2:00 so we looked around the complex which is huge.  It boasts 127 toilets, though I suspect they counted stalls as a toilet, and of course, none of which have paper. It's property includes 48,000 acres.
   2:00 p.m. arrived and we entered the main temple.  This cynical curmudgeon was pleasantly surprised.  It is the most beautiful Buddhist temple that I have seen.  Approximately 60 feet wide and 300 feet long there are seated Buddha statues at each end.  The ceilings and walls are covered with mirrors and the floor is polished marble.  The supporting columns are covered with small, diamond shaped mirrors...and there are hundreds of columns.  Lights glisten everywhere with sparkling brilliance.  I could congruently tell my hosts that I thought it was spectacular.  I'll include some pictures, which of course, do not do it justice.
   After 15 minutes of looking, and few prayers by the Buddhists, we were ready to head for home. A long drive for a quick look.
   The family wanted to try out a new restaurant, near the house, on our way home.  It was a lovely setting on a small lake, with good food at reasonable prices as we enjoyed the sunset.  A fine end to an interesting day that took a little chip out of my cynicism.

Spectacular inside.

The other direction.

More.

Floating restaurant. 

Whole fish.

Duck cheeks.