The weekend after the Orientation...

          The weekend after was full of touring... On Saturday I, and my fellow Udon Thani exchange students, went to this really cool museum all about one of the most famous archaeological finds in Southeastern Asia... And it was right next door to my town of Udon Thani... Part of the museum was just for showing old artifacts that were found at the site and life-like statues of what inhabitants would have looked like in the past.


The entrance to the Museum.

A spear head and an arm bone with a bracelet.



The most common artifact in the site: pots.









The other part of the museum was basically one of the archaeological sites. The had put back some of the artifacts into their original places and preserved the site so that all visitors would have a greater appreciation for the excavating process.   



One of the excavation pits from the archaeological site.

 After the museum we went to a small place of prayer (I can't really call it a temple, because there was no real building...). There was this huge golden Buddha, a long walkway with 2 long snake statues as handrails, and a pool of water that was suppose to have something to do with wishes... O, yeah, and there was this one trail leading off to the side that was swamped, and I decided to take it with the help of my fellow exchange students...

 

Striking a bell in the place of worship.

 

The Giant Buddha that I was talking about

John and Raul next to the snake stature hand rails.

The Udon boys in front of the pool of water.

The flooded path to the unknown.

John made a misstep and sunk knee deep in the mud...



We made it back from our adventure without any main injuries and headed back home. The next day was a day with Rotary... We went to 9(!) temples in one day!!! Don't get me wrong the temples are all beautiful and an amazing cultural experience that is hard to find anywhere else. But 9 temples in one day! Things start blending together after about temple 3, but I'll put a few of my favorite pictures up to show you most of the day...

 

The day started with giving offerings of food to passing monks.

Every exchange student (except the Canadian) from Udon Thani is in this picture... Even the AFS students.

Some training for the future... Maybe...

Another offbeat trail that no one uses. It was close to an eighth of mile long slope!

One of my favorite temples... It was actually built into the side of a cliff!!

My other favorite temple, because it was right along the river basically built on a bluff.
That is my whole host family...

And finally the last temple... We got there in the dark! But it was also very beautiful.

That concluded the tour of the 9 temples of Udon Thani. After we had a very late dinner, went home, and tried to get as much rest as we could before the coming week of school...