"Antiques"

Many stalls were selling "Antiques" -- obvious fakes. But make for good pictures. Sad to see in the temples, many statues were missing arms and legs and faces and heads etc -- people hack them off then sell them to collectors.

One (revered) statue -- the Leper King -- has been hacked so many times that is has been removed and placed in a museum. It has been replaced with a concrete version which - you guessed it - has been hacked about a bit too.

The golden buddah shot was actually taken on my trip to Bangkok a few weeks ago -- I wandered round a back street to find some guys making 'antiques' -- including rubbing dirt on the artefacts etc. Just about got the shot taken without getting duffed up! Reminds me -- I have 200+ Thailand pictures to post up!

M