Luang Prabang is home to dozens of temples, with one on practically every corner. It is easy to spend a day exploring the many temples in the city and still have many left unvisited. We took the time to explore Wat Xiengthong, one of the larger temples in Old Town.

You’ll find Wat Xiengthong on the westernmost side of Old Town. If you get there early enough you will see the procession of the Sai Bat in which people donate food to the monks. After witnessing the Sai Bat, we stepped inside the temple that served as its starting point.

Wat Xiengthong translates to “Temple of the Golden City“, and the gold-covered buildings inside live up to its name. The nagas guarding the entrance to the prayer rooms are also painted, golden guardians to protect a golden city.

The temple was surprisingly quiet after the Sai Bat. It must be that the monks begin their studies as soon as they return, and many tourists likely returned to their hotels for a nap. I could have used a nap, but since we were already up, we decided to explore.

In the gardens there was a large statue of a jade peacock. It stood out to me as I hadn’t seen anything like it in any other Buddhist temple before. As they can eat plants normally poisonous to humans, they represent the ability to accept the “poisons” of life, and acceptance and openness to the spiritual. It made me wonder if the monks here focused on this kind of spiritual acceptance in their teachings.

Our lack of sleep started to catch up with us, so we decided to go back to the hotel for a rest. We had planned a small hike to another temple, where we could see the sunset. Rest was needed: we had another temple to climb, and the sunset was waiting.