Temple of the Golden Buddha

One of our orientation leaders, Nik, praying in front of the Golden Buddha. This is a highly revered temple in northern Thailand in which the temple walls are painted to tell the story of the 3 Buddha statues that were made for a royal family, and the travels of the statues themselves. This one is actually made of pure gold and is 1 of the 3 original Buddhas that survived the travels. One of them sank to the bottom of the Mekong River and still sits there because they believed that was the fate of that Buddha statue. The other one sits in a temple in Bangkok.