Thai What?

THAI WATS!  
Thats what ;)
When we were in Bangkok for the Assembly we toured the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. The palace was the official residence of the Kings of Thailand from 1782 to 1925. It is now mainly a tourist attraction and is also used for official events and of course you can still see many Buddhists praying here.

We had a great tour guide who had funny answers for my questions.
He has just finished telling us that the Emerald Buddha was said to be carved out of one giant emerald but that it was in fact jade.
So I asked him, "Who made the Emerald Buddha?" (he had been telling us about the architecture of many other beautiful buildings and I wanted to see if he had ever considered a Creator.)
"The angels" He told me.
I was not expecting That answer- I thought he would name some famed person and perhaps consider that this "God" was made from human hands. But no.  So then I asked:
"Who made the angels?"
That's when he looked at me funny and said, "They are people who have died and are waiting to be reincarnated."
Oh. Hmm. But then, "Who decides if people were good or bad and how they are reincarnated?"
He told me Nature.
Bummer. :( I didn't want to risk annoying him with further questions. Many times we find that Buddhists do not question things- its not that they were told not to, often they just don't.

Anyhow the place was very interesting and beautiful and sometimes a little creepy. Like this guy who was eating all the people and later barfed them out after his belly had been slashed open.
yummy.

 They have all sorts of Gods and even Demons who live in the temple. Apperantly demons who live outside the temple are bad and the ones inside are good because they are forced into servitude. They have to hold up walls and such, as you see they do not seem very happy.


Here are a few more pics: