4 countries in less than 24 hours

Snow in Amsterdam was a shock to my system this morning, after the muggy sauna that was Bangkok and the slightly less muggy sauna that was Phnom Penh. I'm back in Athens now, where the temperature is somewhat normal, and needless to say, I'm completely freezing.

So where to begin? I have two weeks of pictures to show you. If you are my friend on facebook, you could just go look at the album I posted earlier today. That will knock off about 60 of them for you. For the rest of you, and for the rest of the rest of you, because I know you will keep coming back even if you've already seen the photos, I will post a little each day this week. We can't get overwhelmed right off the bat.

Today's theme is tourism. NOT sex tourism; I'm sure we will get to that. Along with the ministry stuff we did - outreach, visiting a variety of established ministries, prayer walks, etc. - we saw quite a bit of Bangkok. They wanted to be sure we saw the good sides as well as the parts we'd be working in. Understandable!

Last Sunday afternoon we set off into the steamy, aromatic city for a bit of a tour with Darrell, Charity's dad, who was the lone male in our group of 9-12 women (depending on the day/activity). We took the water taxi up the river. Here are some of the girls on the team, wishing the breeze was a little stronger on the river:

Our first stop was the palace and...er...really big wats (a wat is a temple). They were pretty incredible to look at, actually:Once inside the grounds, we could take off our shoes and step into a special temple with hundreds of worshipers to get a look at the Emerald Buddha. Photography was strictly forbidden. I have become pretty good at discreet photo-taking. Afterward I felt guilty and disrespectful.
The Great Palace:
One of the guards; not quite holding still:
Nearby (which is not quite as "nearby" when it is 90 degrees and 90 percent humidity and you are walking, with long pants and sleeved shirts and closed-toed shoes because that is proper temple attire), is a very large Reclining Buddha. He fills up the temple, and is so large that it's really difficult to get a clear view of the whole thing:
Worshippers can give offerings by putting a coin in each of the bowls along the wall:We took a water taxi across the river to the Wat Arun, this huge temple that can be seen down the river...
You can climb it! In Israel last year, my favorite part was climbing around in caves or through tunnels or anything else that involved climbing, crawling, or floating (Dead Sea). So I really liked this temple. Cheap thrills. The stairs were really steep, though; I still get a little tingley when I think about it.

Shirley, who I roomed with, and I on one of the levels:Some of the detail on the temple:
Um, what?

Well, as the title suggests, it's been a long day...I succeeded in emptying the contents of my suitcase onto my bed (except the clothes, which all went straight into the laundry), so now I guess everything else is going back into the suitcase so I can sleep in my bed.