gold leaf

This is a small Buddha statue at Wat Phra Keaw (the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, on the grounds of the Grand Palace in Bangkok). It looks like the gold leaf is flaking off, but that's not what's happening. The hands in the picture are actually adding a small square of gold leaf to this Buddha's head.

This is one type of Buddhist "good deed" called making merit. Giving alms to monks is another way of making merit; donating to a temple would also fall under that category. But adding gold to a Buddha is certainly the most picturesque. People do this when they come to the temples to pray. It's always the smaller images like this one that get the gold leaf added to them--no one presses gold leaf into the massive Reclining Buddha at Wat Po, for example--but you can see statues like this at just about any temple.