The museum has a very impressive building and they have built the museum around stupas.  Really nice grounds to walk around.

Stupas everywhere.

Temples, stupas, fountain and John

Really interesting fountain, don’t know why he is standing on a lion, wild boar and eagle?

We really enjoyed the grounds of the National Museum, unfortunately they wouldn’t allow cameras in the museum, it would have been nice as they explained an awful lot about the formation of temples and pagodas.

This temple was like a maze, corridor after corridor and many of the locals come inside and sleep on the floors in the corridors, as it is so much cooler than outdoors - all part of the temple happenings.

This temple was constructed by a very wealthy and important person.  The architecture of the building is so very impressive.

Similar to the snake temple, this seemed to be the birdie temple, the bird’s had their nests behind the Buddha’s head, and you can see parts of the nests on both sides of the head ….as well as the bird poop!

Another 11^th century temple still in excellent condition.  You sometimes have to shake your head after you visit an edifice built in the 1100’s.

I liked the colours they use on the Buddhas, we have seen so many gold Buddhas that this was a nice change.  They use the minerals to get the reddish brown colours, we also saw yellow which again is obtained from rocks and plants. These temples had paintings on their walls that were still preserved.

A quiet courtyard at the side of the temple, they used these arched windows to show the pastoral scenes and gardens outside the temples, so the people visiting the temple could also enjoy the outdoors around the temples, even today many families have picnics on the grounds of the temples.

Another very lavish temple.  The usually have a very decorative arch to walk through and then a long walkway to the front of the temple and we also get to enjoy the souvenir stalls all along the walkway, I’m sure years ago there were stalls there with food, flowers and other temple offerings.

This was the entrance to the temple pictured above. 

Our last temple for the day….

…..we are truly “templed out”.

Buddha was at the entrance to this temple

I liked the serenity of this Buddha’s face, but he has a very large nose!

As we go through the archway this is the way back to our car and hotel, we can call it a day.