Tag Archives: temple I received a postcard from friends this week: a picture of women in Laos on their knees giving alms to the monks. It reminded me how much I love Laos: the songs, dances and smiles of the people, the brilliant hand-woven fabrics, the colourful markets, the ethnic villages, the beautiful countryside… I’m less fond of the border […]  “By the way, you DO have your passports with you, don’t you?” our guide asked (in Thai) after the van we were in had pulled away from our hotel. At least, that is what I finally figured out she had said – by which time we were already five or ten minutes down the highway. Negotiating […]  Last October, we were heading off on a much-anticipated short trip to Thailand’s North. Ask any Thai about the northern cities of Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai, and they will tell you that they are: “very beautiful! There are many temples.” A non-Thai friend of ours in Bangkok asked what we would see at our […]  In Thailand, architecture – especially temple architecture – is the highest form of art. The architect’s ability to combine beauty of form with functional utility; to plant a building in the ground and send it soaring to the heavens – is respected and revered. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that two recognised Thai visual […]  After bumping along narrow Cambodian roads into oncoming trucks and buffalo carts for what seemed like a very long time, our bus pulled to a stop on the shoulder in the middle of nowhere. Our Khmer guide assured us we were at the back entrance to Beng Mealea, one of the less-visited temples of Angkor. […] |
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