Nong Khai

This weekend was wonderful, but wasn't as busy as some of the other ones had been. Our Friday night did not have us leaving the house, but after the busy week that Ari and I had, we were actually okay with it. 

 Saturday, we went to Nong Khai for the day. We took the train there for 11 baht, which translates to about 35 cents- whatta steal! It was actually quite nice. It's a major tourist city in Thailand (nowhere near Bangkok though...). To start out, we went out to the "Friendship" bridge. This bridge is a decent sized bridge that connects Thailand to Laos. It was donated by the king of Australia in the 90's. People make this bridge as this huge thing, but Ari and I weren't suuuper impressed. It was a very large concrete bridge- very similar to a bridge on 35w... Oh well, we took pictures anyway. 

After the bridge, we headed to a market on the Mekong River. It was nice to look at everything that is sold at these markets- some of the things are absolutely beautiful and I wish I could buy it all... However, I'm really not sure what I would do with twenty million elephant statues. They are all SO pretty though! Maybe I'll just have a Thai themed house someday? 





After the market, we headed to The Sala Kaew Ku Sculpture Park, where they were around probably 50 or so statues. Many of them were over 25 meters tall. They had buddhas, statues of snakes, statues telling the stories of Heaven and Hell, etc. They were really cool to look at, and HUGE. That was easily the highlight of the day, and I would tell anyone that came to Thailand to try to make the trip up there to see them- they were unbelievable. 





Once we were done looking at the statues, we went to a famous temple. This was easily the prettiest one I have been in. The walls were all painted with the story of how the temple came into existence. Apparently, the large Buddha was being taken down the Mekong river when the boat sank. Magically, the Buddha made it out of the water, and so it is a well known temple because of that great Buddha- the Thai culture and religion is so interesting to hear about. I don't know a ton about Buddhism, but it's interesting to compare it to Christianity. 

Sunday, we spent the day lounging and at the park. We walked to the park and back, and therefore got a bit sweaty, but it was nice to get out and about in Udon Thani. We did learn, however, that you shouldn't bother looking for food/drink stands or shopping places/markets until around five- nobody is going to be open!


Xoxo Kenzkeg