Elvis isn't dead.

He just retired to Thailand.

Day five.  With the vacation halfway over, Carl and I decided to get out and see one of the main attractions of the Phuket region; Wat Chalong.  It is a huge temple complex located slightly northeast of where we're staying at Kata Beach.

Outer views of two of the smaller buildings.  The one just above here is a temple where you can throw fortune sticks.  I got a fortune, but of course I can't read a word of it as it is written in Thai.  Hopefully I can find someone here at the resort who can translate it for me.  That would be cool.

We wandered into the main temple, where the principal Buddha is kept.  It's all creamy marble and gold, where the statuary is plastic.  I suppose that was because if the statues were actual gold, the temples would get broken into and the statues stolen.  So it makes sense.

One of the statues in a typical Wai pose.

On the walls there were these amazing murals.  I'm assuming they're telling a story, but as I'm completely ignorant of local mythology, I have no idea what that story is.  The paintings are amazing though:

The main temple is a massive 3-level affair.  Two curving staircases with long roaring dragons as the banisters curl up to each different level.  On the second level is the principal Buddha, a marble statue that smiles benignly down at those who come to see him:

The one thing that put a damper over the whole experience for me were the number of people who were running around and being highly disrespectful of the local temple customs.  For example, they ask that women dress nicely with their legs covered and the tops of their shoulders covered.  So no shorts, short skirts or tank tops.  Which hey, may be a bit sexist, but this is a patriarchal monarchy after all.  Oh and there were signs in front of all the temple buildings with these customs on them in at least 4 languages, so people really couldn't claim ignorance, just stupidity for not reading the signs.  Oi.

Another rule is that it is HIGHLY disrespectful to point your feet at anyone, cos to Thais, the feet are literally and metaphorically the lowest point of the body and so if you point your foot at someone you're saying they're lower than low.  They also ask that you refrain from touching the principal Buddha (fair enough) and also to please not take a photo of yourself with the Buddha.  One woman not only was having her photo taken in front of the Buddha, but she was kneeling with the bottoms of her feet pointing towards the statue.  Oh boy.

Makes you wonder what has happened to simple common courtesy and respect for other cultures doesn't it? Oh well, Carl and I just wandered and took photos in what we hoped were a respectful manner.  On the walls of the second floor there are cabinets with photos and relics that were brought from Sri Lanka in 1999.  And up on the third level there was this:

At the time, Carl and I didn't know what was being kept in that centre crystal.  But upon returning to the hotel and looking up a bit of the history of Wat Chalong (yeah yeah I know I should have done that before we went there, shut up) I found that it's a fragment of bone.  Yes bone.  From Lord Buddha himself.  So it's very special to the Buddhist monks here.

We then moved into the secondary temple, where people were offering up flowers and pieces of gold:

This is the same temple building where the fortune sticks are.

Wandering outside, we discovered the source of the thunderous sounds that had been surprising us at intervals during our wanders:

That is a giant kiln, and they were setting off firecrackers in it.  Fun.

In another building we finally got our first look at some actual Buddhist monks:

Either they were statues, or those monks are REALLY good at sitting still.  It was hard to tell.  They looked so lifelike.  And of course you don't really feel comfortable asking out of fear of sounding disrespectful.

After we'd had our fill of the atmosphere and cultural import, we had a walk around the small markets that had been set up and bought a few souvenirs before heading back to our taxi and going back to Club Med.  All in all the entire trip took us about 2-2.5 hours.

Carl went to play archery again at 4, but I stayed in the room because I was just wiped from the heat and decided that I much rather liked the idea of a nap before dinner.

After dinner, the evening's entertainment was Eddine (a French G.O who helps run some of the excursions) doing his famous Elvis show.  And to be honest, he was pretty damn good.

While he was singing, the bar was running a casino night:

I was doing ok at Texas Hold Em but then one of the G.Os got more money than sense and was just buying out the pots, so I moved on to blackjack.  It was great fun.  And after it was all packed up, a DJ came in and played some pretty awesome tunes for the guests to get their groove on to.  Carl doesn't dance so we just sat and watched and drank.  Finally headed back to our room at like 1:30am and crashed.  It was a good night.  And a great day.

In the next few days we're looking to head on up to the Big Buddha:

Apparently it's over 4 stories tall.  Amazing.  Can't wait to see it up close.

Anyway that's it from me.  Take care everyone.