Woolly says – Breakfast today was a croissant on the move, not the best of French pastries but it filled a small hole in my tummy. Having navigated our way through the underground system and back towards the Grand Palace with a little help from a tuk tuk driver we were at our first destination by 10.15am, sadly so were several hundred coaches filled with tourists. Keeping my paws firmly crossed that they were heading somewhere else we paid for our tickets and entered the gates of Wat Pho. Wat Pho is one of Bangkok’s oldest temples and has existed before Bangkok was established as the capital by King Rama I. It is thought to have been built or expanded during the reign of King Phetracha (1688–1703), King Rama I ordered further construction and renovation of the temple in 1788 with the idea of moving Buddha’s imagines from other temples in the country and keeping them there. Expecting to see hordes of people I was immensely pleased to realise that we had the place nearly to ourselves, even more impressive were the structures, they were incredible, Jo had already started with the camera as I trotted from one ceramic pagoda to another.
Woolly and I had both loved the few ceramic structures at the Grand Palace, but this place was full of them!
Woolly says – Set in groups of five or six we admired the tiling and the craftmanship that had been used, dotted around were small garden areas with lovely cute statues, not as cute as me obviously, some had ponds and some small waterfalls, it was tranquil and beautiful. Each gate we passed had giant Chinese figures to guard the complex, each one was completely different and beautifully carved, I loved the moustaches they sported. The building were plain white but the entrances, doorways and window surrounds were adorned in gold and jewels glistening in the sunshine, we saw an open gate and I led the way through. Never in my life have I seen so many Buddha’s not just the quantity but each one (with a couple of exceptions) were golden Buddha’s. The whole courtyard we found ourselves in was surrounded by the meditating Buddha which were sitting on a jewel encrusted bases, they were stunning. Through another doorway I went to find even more statues of the great man, each veranda and courtyard area was guarded by smaller Chinese men who were the same size as Jo, so pretty small. We came into a much larger courtyard that had a large white building in it’s centre, Jo was busy snapping at everything in sight as I wandered round trying to take the magnificence in when I came across a large room with the biggest Buddha I had seen so far, he was immense. Seeing a doorway into another room I crept in and found yet another Buddha in beautiful gold leaf sitting under the tree of enlightenment that was beautiful as well.
There was so much to take in it was slightly overwhelming and incredibly beautiful; my small friend had started counting the Buddha’s and given up after the first hundred or so and still they kept coming.
Woolly says – It was time to investigate the large white structure in the middle of the yard, as the women discarded their shoes I bounced up the steps and found myself inside a huge temple with a golden centre piece which had another fine Buddha sitting at the top. A guard kept telling people to sit down so I did and was joined by Jo and Zoe whose chins were on the floor, it was truly amazing. We sat for a while looking at the finery before I realised that my legs had locked up and that Jo, who had sat in a cross legged position was struggling to stand up, and that we both needed help to rise, Zoe helped us up and we took our leave. It appeared that the tourists had finally caught up with us as we moved into the next area of the grounds, Jo was trying to take a picture of one of the lampposts which were as beautiful as everything else and had to wait as person after person crossed into her view finder. Pagoda’s were everywhere, blue, green and yellow ones each incredible in their decoration, I however had set my sights on some giant ones and trotted off to find the way to get closer. A huge statue with a jolly hat seemed to be guarding the giant ceramic pagoda’s and having waved at him as I passed I found myself right I front of them. I was speechless they were so wonderful, the tiles were incredible, and mosaic had been used to create flowers on each of the three that were in front of me.
Trying to get them onto one photograph was going to take a bit but I tried snapping from a variety of angles to show them to their best and failed.
Woolly says – Surrounding the three wonderful sights were more verandas with even more golden Buddha’s to look at, each area had him in a different position, we must be into the thousands by now for the Buddha count. Thinking that we had completed our tour and having bought a couple of postcards for family and my bestie I happily trotted towards the exit only to find we had completely missed a large building which seemed to be overrun with humans which always means there is something to see.
Shoes came off again as we followed the crowds inside. Words fail me on the size of this Buddha. The reclining Buddha was built by Rama III in 1832 and represents the entry of Buddha into Nirvana and the end of all reincarnations. At 15 meters high and 46 meters long, and it is one of the largest Buddha statues in Thailand, we jostled our way through the throngs to try and get our pictures along with all the selfie shots taking place, there was no way of capturing the full size of him, but it took a good five minutes to walk from his head to his feet. The soles of the feet of the Buddha are 3 meters high and 4.5 meters long, and inlaid with mother-of-pearl and were beautiful, who knew that feet could be that amazing!
Having found a nice cool café for some drinks and ice cream and ignored the mess a certain mammoth made we discussed our morning and decided that we had enjoyed Wat Pho much more than the Palace and having seen so many Buddha’s we thought we would head for one last one for the day.
Woolly says – She’s gone Buddha crazy! A quick tuk tuk ride took us into the famous area of China town and the Phra Maha Mondop, otherwise known as the shrine of the Golden Buddha, surely he couldn’t top what we had already seen!
The temple had been built in 2007 and its gleaming white walls and gold decoration were a wow factor. I trotted up the four flights of steps eager to see what was in store and it was worth every ounce of sweat. The huge room was beautiful in itself but the Golden Buddha was out of this world. He glowed, and even the amazing ceilings and archways dimmed into insignificance compared to him. Weighing in at five and a half tonnes he had been cast over 700 years ago and is the biggest Golden Buddha in the world sitting at over fifteen feet. It wasn’t until 1955 when he was moved from another temple that anyone realised that he was completely made of gold, as the transport tried to move him, the huge statue was dropped, and some large pieces of plaster came away revealing the solid gold underneath, what a find and for once how lucky to drop something! Having paid our respects we went down a flight of steps and into the museum that told us how he had been made and concealed from enemies and the story of how he had arrived at his current location, fascinating and even better was that the museum had air con! My paws were hurting, and the women were flagging so having walked through some of the famous district and admired the areas gates and temples we plodded towards the train and the hope of putting our feet up for the evening, an incredible day and even though I had lost count of the number of Buddha’s we had seen it must be close to a world record!