Day 404: Pha That Luang

When I woke up in the morning, it was pouring down - so much, in fact, that it poured straight through parts of the hostel's roof. I didn't let the weather irritate me, ate breakfast and worked on my applications for a while. Around noon, the rain and clouds had completely cleared away, and so I used the perfect weather for a visit to the Lao national symbol: Pha That Luang stupa. This is the stupa seen from the huge open square outside its main gate:

To the left and right of the stupa were temple buildings that were almost as splendid as the golden stupa itself, for example this one:

To be able to enter the stupa compound, every woman had wear a traditional Lao skirt. Luckily, there was a skirt rental nearby that also helped with dressing. The result, however, was that I wore two additional layers of cloth over my long trousers - on a very hot and humid day. I was sweating like a pig, but I think the closeup view of the magnificent stupa was worth it ;-)

On the way back to my hostel, I saw this world peace gong in a small park. Next to (probably) all of the world's flags, the gong was also decorated with symbols for the world's religions on the inner circle: