Have you ever had that experience where you go somewhere hoping to get some good photos only to find the location a building site? That seems to happen to me all the time. The image below is of restoration work being performed on the wat phra Kaew, back in 1989. Rather than try to avoid the scaffolding, I was able to incorporate it in this image.
The use of gold in many of the temples is simply astounding, especially having grown up in England with it's rather austere, plain churches. Not that they were always that way. English churches were also brightly decorated with gold before the English Reformation ended up appropriating the wealth of the church for the crown.
The brightly decorated statues also stand out in contrast to the mostly plain statues found on the exteriors of buildings in Europe.
I do find it curious though, that the tarp shielding the restorer from the sun and rain is tied around the arm of one of the statues!
