The Wat Tour

I changed the background. Lets you see the pictures a little better than the dark one I had before, hope is ok.

So on Monday morning at 8 am we were wisked away in a large Toyota van, just Deeds and I to go on a tour of three famous Buddhist temples (Wat) in Bangkok.
The temples are in order: Wat Traimit - The Temple of the Golden Buddha,  Wat Pho - The Temple of the Reclining Buddha and Wat Phra Kaew - The Temple of the Emerald Buddha.
Wat Phra Kaew is on the grounds of the Royal Palace and so a walk around of these structures was also included on our half day tour.
 
I have included as many of the photos as I could here without making this a pic blog rather than a word blog. For those who are into Facebook, I have an album there.


It was a gorgeous day, sun was beaming down on us as we ventured in to see the Golden Buddha.

 The story is that the Buddha image was kept from invaders for centuries because it was covered with plaster, appearing to be a normal plaster buddha. One day when the image was being moved it was dropped and workers discovered a shiny surface inside. They discovered a buddha image of 5.5 tons of solid gold.

You can see the wall behind the buddha. The walls are hand painted. Amazing work and detail all around the temple.
Our next visit to Wat Pho was equally amazing. The temple of the reclinging buddha holds an image that is 46 metres long.

The image is covered in gold leaf. Again the detail of the walls, roof -which is always painted red in temples, and even the bed the buddha is on is extremely intricate. The feet of the reclining buddha has inlaid mother of pearl depicting 108 different pictures.

Foot to head view here, with some view of the mother of pearl inlays.

This view shows the size of the feet and the intricate inlay of mother of pearl. Amazing stuff.

Wat Phra Chettuphon Wimon Mangkhalaram Ratchaworamahawihan or Wat Pho as the Thais call it is also home to more than 1000 buddha images, the most any wat in Bangkok holds. The wat is also home to a bodhi tree which claimed to be a cutting of the original tree in India where Buddha sat while awaiting enlightening.

Prior to the temple's founding, the site was a centre of education for traditional Thai medicine, and statues were created showing yoga positions and there are plaques all around the walls of a school building showing the methods to traditional thai massage from hundreds of years ago.

Wat Pho is part of a working monastery and there are monks coming and going. Here is the temple where prayers are held twice daily.




From here it was off to the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. Which by the way is not emerald at all. Wat Phra Kaew means Temple of the Holy Jewel and it houses the holiest of the buddha images in Thailand. This temple is the most sacred place for Thais. Full pants must be worn out of respect and no one gets in without, including yours truly. Deeds had a beautiful wrap over her shorts. And as I had mentioned off the top it was a beautiful sunny day. Which in Bangkok only means one thing. It was brutally hot and the  sweat was rolling down my back. Then I had to put another pair of pants on overtop of my shorts. Sweat! Enough said.
This is Deeds at the Grand Palace grounds. The shrine is in the background, check out the cute little parousel she bought outside. Had to have it, the sun was that hot.

 This is a shot of the interior of the shrine. The large gold dome houses relics of the buddha.

And below is the picture of the emerald buddha I acquired on the internet.

My shot is over on the right.

This Buddha image is small, just over 2 feet tall, made of green jasper or perhaps jadeite ("emerald" refers to the intense green color, not the specific stone) and since no pictures can be taken inside the temple the shot I got from outside is very tiny. Next time I will bring my telephoto! So the pic I have here is procured from places unknown and hopefully not illegal to reproduce.

There is a library on site that houses the buddhist scripture, one is on gold and the only version that sits in the library.
All through this tour we were taking pictures on our phones and sending to Lena in Halifax. Kinda like she was right there with us, kinda! Was way cool though, when you think about it. Technology is soooo cooool!

There were many more cool things at this place. Definitely I will go again to see this. I took many pics of all kinds of things, way too many to put up on the blog at this time. This last one here is of the Palace. It is only used now to host special events, when foreign dignitaries come to town, that sort of thing. This building was commissioned by Rama V. He had travelled extensively in Europe and brought western architecture to Thailand. They call this building europe with a thai hat!
So that was a hot a very interesting day for us. Wow, lots of cultural stuff, wetted your appetite about buddhism. Cool day. We were glad to get home and hit the pool to cool off. Actually brought a couple of cold ones with us and had a beer pool side. Nice! Enjoy
Sawadee Krup