Temples, Tailors and Touts
Trip Start
Jul 15, 2011
1
46
76
Trip End
Nov 02, 2011
Where I stayed
Bangkok, Thailand
Sunday, September 25, 2011
It’s an amazing looking building, such a brilliant white with a beautiful gold and orange roof and adornments. The inside of the temple is almost as beautiful as the outside; at the far end there is a large gold Buddha sitting against a blue background with two monks sitting in front of it. The monks were being given offerings from many tourists and in return they were blessed by the monks. It was nice to stop and watch this for a while and would have been quite peaceful if it wasn’t for the hordes of people taking photos and videos.
As we walked around the grounds of the temple we came across a courtyard which was bordered by lots of food stalls and people sitting around eating and drinking. Further around from this there were a group of monks sitting together chanting and praying so we stopped to watch (and take some sneaky photos!).
Once we had finished at the temple we headed off to a Tailor nearby as Bobby wanted to get some custom-made shirts ready for his return back to working life :-(. After being measured and picking out the fabrics he liked we were back on the road again in a trusty tuk tuk and headed to the next temple; Wat Suthat.
Wat Suthat is the headquarters of the Brahman priests who perform the Royal Ploughing Ceremony in May and houses one of the largest surviving bronze Buddha images. Again this temple was beautiful looking from the outside with a small garden at the entrance to the temple with interesting looking stone statues. The inside consisted of a lot of people sitting and praying in front of a large bronze Buddha and murals depicting stories of the Buddha’s previous lives. I love these temples and I could easily spend all day wondering around them and taking in the atmosphere.
Another short tuk tuk ride and we were standing outside one of the most visited places in Bangkok; Wat Pho. This temple is home to the largest reclining Buddha; almost too big for its shelter it’s 46m long and 15m high and illustrates the passing of the Buddha into Nirvana. It’s hard to take in just how big this statue is, but let me tell you its big!! There were bus loads of tourists here which kinds detracted from the beauty of the temple a little bit, but it was still pretty cool to have been there and seen it. The temple grounds were also very nice to walk around, there was some nice architecture to see and even a small garden with a waterfall.
Once we had finished here we decided to grab some lunch and figure out what we wanted to do next. I must admit that I am not the biggest fan of Bangkok; it’s so busy and noisy with traffic that it’s not very relaxing to walk anywhere, and even when you do walk somewhere as soon as you get the map out to see where you are, someone approaches you and pretends to be very friendly and helpful and then lies to you (telling you where you want to go is closed) and trying to get you to go somewhere else that they will get commission for taking you to. This happens all the time and after a while it gets a bit too much. That being said we decided we had had enough for now and grabbed a tuk tuk back to our hotel to recharge a little bit. This was a good idea as today was one of the first days for a while that it wasn’t raining and the sun was shining so we decided to make the most of it and chill out around our rooftop pool whilst figuring out our next move.
Bobby needed to go back to the Tailor in the evening for a fitting and so soon we headed back there and, after trying on his very nice shirt and trousers and looking very smart in the process, we headed off to one of the many malls to do a bit more shopping and grab some dinner.
