Wat Huay Pla Kang: Not Just the Guan Yin Statue

The Guan Yin statue is visible throughout Chiang Rai: when it's not hazy

Wat Huay Pla Kang is a temple complex on the northwest side of Chiang Rai.  It's fairly modern.  It's not historic.  It's just fun.

Any temple can have elephants, but Wat Huay Pla Kang?

A dinosaur.  Playing amongst the lambs.

And pumpkins.  The dinosaur is playing amongst the pumpkins, too.  Creationists would approve of this depiction of dinosaurs, mammals, and giant squash/gourds all living in earthly harmony.  Before the fall.

Let's have a look inside, shall we?

You can climb up the nine floors to the top.  Every floor is a viewpoint.

I thought this one looked a little more Hindu than Buddhist.

I guess, because, when I see a god-like creature with multiple arms, I immediately think:  Hindu.  Sorry for my brain operating in cliches.

And as I climb higher, the views get better.

 

All was well and good until I reached the final staircase, between the eighth and ninth floors, and I heard the metal stair give out a very loud creaky groan.  It was just two steps below the top floor, so I kept going.  Trepidation included.

Maybe that's why the Fat Buddha was laughing:

Time to venture over to Guan Yin statue, where you can ride an elevator up to the top.  You don't have to rely on creaky metal stairs.

I get in the elevator and it does not stop until we reach the top.

Floor 26.

This is the view.

The interior space here had a bit of a "Garden of Eden" vibe, if you ask me.

Only it's not a snake that is the tempter in the tree.  It's a dragon.  Which I could believe was the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

Let's meet the animal statuary at the base of the Guan Yin statue. which, is often mistakenly referred to as a "Buddha" when Guan Yin is not a Buddha, but is the Buddhist goddess of mercy.

The goat.  Looking decidedly less satanic than Christian imagery would portray a goat.

A monkey.  Looking surprisingly cat-like.

A rooster:

A pig:

Looking rather nighmarish there.  Like someone bad wearing a pig mask in one of those movies where the bad guys wear pig masks.

And the Year of the Rat:

This statue looked a little on the Catholic side to me.

There seems to be an element of preaching "hell and damnation" that I do not associate with Buddhism.

Here was a charity solicitation that sufficiently plucked my heartstrings enough to put a decent-enough-sized bill in the till.

I usually ignore general charitable solicitations in places such as these.  But this one was raising money to buy coffins for people who die without families.  That was a rather specific cause and one that, since they mentioned it, seemed like something that would call for outside fundraising.  I should've given more.

And Guan Yin starts to fade in the distance.

The pink shuttle bus to take you from the parking lot to Guan Yin?

Free!  Got to love that.

And with that ...

We say good-bye to Guan Yin and head off to the next destination.  Buh-bye.