Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew Temple made from recycled glass bottles

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 11:30:29 +0000

The Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew temple is built by Buddhist monks who built it with more than a million recycled glass bottles. Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew is better known as “Wat Lan Kuad” or “Temple of Million Bottles” because of the glittering from countless glass containers on the walls. The temple is located in Thailand’s Sisaket province, about 600 km (370 miles) Northeast of the Thai capitol Bangkok. With this breathtaking Thai Buddhist temple the monks have found an environmentally friendly way to utilize discarded bottles to reach nirvana — using them to build everything in its premises, from a crematorium to shelters and toilets.

The result is an amazing structure that goes far beyond the imagination. The monk selected the bottles by color, size and form. Only the Buddha statue isn’t made of recycled bottles. But that has to do with respect for Buddha.

“The more bottles we get, the more buildings we make,” Abbot San Kataboonyo (the monk on the photos) told Reuters.

Erin in India!

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 11:05:49 +0000

Houses on the hillside, Darjeeling

In Guido cental, Newark, NJ airport

View from our hotel window in Siliguri

Below the window in Siliguri

Inside the room, Siliguri

Eating ice cream and watching cable in Darjeeling

View from the window in Darjeeling.

Saint someone or other’s moldy church, Darjeeling

Hillside, Darjeeling

Door down the alley from our hotel, Darjeeling

Another hillside, Darjeeling

Hanuman statue, Darjeeling

Luck you, too!

Houses on the hillside, Darjeeling

Hot AND stimulating… we didn’t actually go there

Darjeeling walking street

Darjeeling car street. Notice all the people? Imagine adding some bikes and rickshaws, dogs and cows and you’ll be in any other Indian city

More people, more jeeps

The clock tower, Darjeeling

We saw monkeys

Baby monkeys!

This guy was going to kick Dirk’s a** for taking that last picture

They’re fast!

And less cute than I thought they would be

And scared of cameras that flash

Panorama action

Very similar to that last one…

More panorama

Another similar picture

And more panorama

Even more panorama

And the last in the panorama series, you have to put them together yourself

Darling

Beautiful hillside, Darjeeling

I don’t know what to say about this (still Darjeeling)

Tibet Road, Gangtok! View from our hotel balcony

Uh oh, another panorama

Yep, that’s where Mount Khangchendzonga (the world’s third highest peak) is hiding behind the clouds

Dirk really likes panoramas

REALLY likes them

Evening from the balcony, Gangtok

Slightly different view from the balcony

This lady really wanted her picture taken

She was stoked

Monks chanting at Sera Jhe Monastery in Gangtok

Outside the temple, the Dharmachakra

Not sure who these are representations of…

The temple door at the monastery

Above the door

Their Stupa

Sera Jhe monastery stupa

Their prayer flags

They had a lot of them

Hillside town

More leaves this time

With pine needles

And without

Namgyal Institute of Tibetology

Namgyal Institute of Tibetology library, lots of texts

The front of the building

The side of the building

Candles at the Stupa behind the Namgyal Institute of Tibetology

A close up

The Stupa (the name of which escapes me)

Again!

From the Gondola over Gangtok

Gangtok from above

It was gorgeous

I look a little more relaxed than I was

This is how I really felt…

This is NOT an accurate representation of traffic in India

Dirk is mad

Dirk is silly

Rumtek

The Shrine room door

I stuck my camera in a window to get this one…

Running monk

View from the grounds

Some kind of crow?

One of the stupas

Another view

A caterpiller

Macro

They had these painted stones all over the grounds

Probably a prayer

Prayer flags are very popular

I think this is right before I slipped and fell in the mud

Flowers

Dirk and Nicole

Not sure why they had barbed wire.

The Karma Shri Nalanda Institute of Higher Buddhist Studies

Over the doorway into the room with the Golden Stupa (and right next to a sign that said “No Photos”)

They had a lot of potted plants

And I like using the macro function on my camera

I think this is part of the old shrine room that was removed and placed next to the Institute to preserve it

On the way in there were pictures of Buddhas and wrathful dietys

Prayer wheels

A tin roof with a Satellite dish, go figure

Accidental picture (I take a lot of these)

The botanical garden

There are leeches here

and orchids growing in trees

Morning Glorys!

I experimented with drive by photography for a while

Rice paddy

Is that a Palm tree?

Bamboo

I don’t know what that is

Or why we have this picture

There are a LOT of waterfalls around here

And a lot of rice paddies

These are everywhere with little reasons not to speed. They usually rhyme.

Waterfalls generally lead to rivers

These kids were walking along the highway by themselves. It was a little nervewracking

This is the road. The water just flows across.

Bishwa Karma

Little girl

They decorated the cars for the God of Machinery

Kids LOVE to be photographed

This guy came over and wanted my friendship

One of the bigger shrines

Dirk getting a tika

Pandemonium

We were fed

These guys were SO happy we came

They called themselves our uncles

The other family at the table

This little girl blessed me

This is what they put on our heads. It was three different things, the red powder, the rice, and I think the black stuff is ash.

I don’t WANT TO GO OUT IN THE RAIN!!!

Hey! It’s Khanchendzonga

Fountain, in the wild

Yep, I trekked. This is 30 minutes in.

A road? In the wild?

Sturdy

We saw wildlife

Cute

Ants

This one was a little scary

Rimbi River

Hmm…

I fell here

Totally stable.

Doesn’t this look fun?

Oh yea, no problem

We did it!!

My first wild orchid

Natives!

That thing looks heavy

Mama chicken got mad

This water is so good!

Aquaduct

That’s where we came from

Leeches are nasty

This boy was funny

Wading Israeli

These are little

Our reward

Om Mani Padme Hum

Om Ha Hum Vajra Guru Padma Siddhi Hum

Holy lake

Spinning the prayer wheels

I didn’t

She’s really enjoying that corn stalk

Nichole

She got hold of my camera

Cute

That green stuff is supposed to stop nosebleeds

Ah, whiskey and Pepsi, perfect for trekking

What’s this??

Happy Israeli

Would you believe that it’s a local religious ritual?

Respectable behavior…

Blue sky. It didn’t last long.

Lizard

Orchids!

Tiny flower

Panorama (guess who took these ones…)

Our guest house (the brown one)

Mist

Our room. $1 a day plus meals

Actual wildlife

The giant prayer wheel at Kecheopalri Lake

Stupa at Kecheopalri

Big bug

This is where we decided that up and over was preferable to around

This is when we knew we were lost

Trekking in a jeep.

Fermented millet drink

I don’t think he liked it

Tastes like Sake

Morning in Yuksom

The hat

Chai

More hat

Dirk in the hat

And the owner of the hat

A complete breakfast

Our new friend

And his friend

And the one with the underbite

On the way to Dubdi Monastery

Bamboo

More tiny flowers

Wood

Dubdi Monastery

Prayer flag

Dubdi Monastery Annex

Dubdi Stupa

GIANT prayer wheel at Tashiding

Tashiding

Wrathful

Relics of Buddha are in there

Read all about it here

The Shrine

Carved stones

Where the stones are carved and painted

Random flower in the grass

Giant prayer wheel again

Spinning

Om Mani Padme Hum

Happy Trekkers

Celebrating what we thought was the end

What a goofball

The Godfather

We named him Ugly Humper

I can’t remember what these are called, but they’re everywhere

Pemayangtse In Pelling

This was cool, I was in Sweden when Anna Lindh was killed

These flags are dedicated in part to her

Pemayangtse

Another giant bell

The courtyard, in panorama

The front of the monastery

Leech bait

Finally, one that Dirk can’t understand

The moutains showed themselves on our last morning

Breakfast in Kathmandu

A “certain freshness”

Aww

Drive-by

Stinky

Nagarkot

Hmmm

And then it got foggy

Our room was upstairs (there were mice)

The local bricks

There’s a bird there if you really look

A very satisfied leech

An eagle? Probably a hawk

The window of the “love nest” that Nichole and I shared

And the view from the other window

Goats!

Probably destined to become dinner

A store

Glass bracelets

A restaurant

Not sure what happened to this guy

But I can guess what happened to this one

Pretty nice, right?

Our bus

Mountains!

A water buffalo eating a blanket

More mountais

Chilis drying in the sun

Dinner prep

I don’t know what they were going to do with the head

The best seat on the bus

He bites

Culturally sensitive American

Road construction (all the trucks are painted like this)

Traffic!

Ohhh, nice

Enrolling for 2065.

Competition

Goats on a bus

I guess they’re sure-footed

What is this house doing in Nepal?

Happy tourists in a taxi

The first view

Monastery

Cute pants

Material

Prayer flags on the stups

Our hotel

Tibetan women praying

Fruit stand

Big, tea drinking fly

Vegetable stand

Mala shop

We’re funny

A job opportunity for Ian

I haven’t seen one single overweight Nepali person.

Disabled monkey

Sunbeams

Pashupatinath

A Sadhu wearing gold sunglasses

The steps

Smoke from the cremation

These guys still give me the creeps

The cremation in the background

Kali slaying a demon

Eating the rice offerings

She got paint on her lip

Shiva linga (a fertility symbol)

It’s supposed to be a penis as seen from the inside of a vagina. It doesn’t look anatomically correct to me.

Making fun of monks on cell phones

My “I have diarrhea” face

Sugar

Dirk’s “fish” dinner (it was really tofu). Delicious

erin
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Sep 12, 2008
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