Thailand: Wat Arun

We walked across the busy street, through a market area, and to a jetty along the river offering quick ferries directly across it to another famous Buddhist temple called Wat Arun. I read that there are 31,200 Buddhist temples across Thailand and it does seem like Bangkok was full of them. We visited probably the 3 most famous.

Wat Arun is also known as Temple of the Dawn, and is named after Aruna, the Indian God of Dawn. It is 79 meters high and represents Mount Meru. The temple used to house the so-called Emerald Buddha, which is now in the temple on the Grand Palace property. It's the next temple we'll visit, but not today. Wat Arun was built in the 17th Century and has lots of porcelain decorations.

I'll shut up now and just show you.

This is a picture of another boat ferry from aboard our own boat ferry.

Once we got off the boat, we walked directly to the entrance to Wat Arun.

Ah, I was wondering where the scary guards were.

This is a section of the mural inside the temple. Elaborate murals depicting Buddhist stories covered every inch of wall inside every temple

Outside, another collection of Buddhas.

Ah, the bells. The kids were noisily clanging them for a few seconds before I stopped them. I'm sure the monks appreciated that. I explained the idea of listening to the bell from the very start until the absolute ending of sound and how calming that can be. They took turns sitting on one of the benches and ringing them, then sitting patiently and eagerly listening until no more sound could be heard. Again, another special calm moment.

Look what Daddy found!

Big Boy Buddha

And now we climb,

checking out some porcelain on the way.

And the view from the second level is kinda nice. The air is slightly cooler.

But up we go to the top for these amazing views.

I cannot explain with words how steep these steps are. In fact, they didn't seem steep going up even, but coming down with three shaking little children? Yep, those are steep!

See what I mean?

And then we sat down at a market and enjoyed some ice cream before bargaining for a deal on a longboat tour of Bangkok, which is what comes next. No more temples for today, just the cool breeze on the river as our boat zooms along.

Thailand Intro: Wat Pho

Hi all! The Bach family had an amazing adventure in Thailand last week and, upon returning to Singapore, we were knocked out by a nasty stomach virus. Ted has taken care of all of us and has yet to catch it, so wish him luck!

We took hundreds of pictures in Bangkok and Phuket and even though I'm posting only a fraction, it's still a lot so I will divide these posts up by topic. The first installment will cover our visit to a Buddhist temple, Wat Pho.

Wat Pho is also known as the Temple of the Reclining Buddha. It's the one President Obama and Secretary Clinton visited less than a week before our family. Some background on the wat:
* It is next to the Grand Palace
* It houses a school of traditional Thai massage and is known as its birthplace
* It houses a large monastery
* The bodhi tree pictured is from the original tree in India where Buddha sat awaiting enlightenment
* The reclining buddha is 160 feet long
* The wat was built around 1780

Also, we should talk about pronunciation. Wat Pho (also spelled Wat Po) is pronounced without the "h." It's not "FO." And while we are at it, Phuket is not "FOO-KET," it's "POO-KET." Fun stuff. I had no idea until my friend Andrea Tracy who lives in Bangkok told me.

Here we go!

Okay, I admit I was under the impression that visiting a temple would only involve one big building, maybe some gardens. I had no idea it included sprawling grounds and multiple (20?) buildings. The guards protecting each area were pretty threatening. I'm not messing with this guy.

We started by visiting the Reclining Buddha. Pretty impressive.

For size perspective, this is a shot of the girls standing in front of the hand resting on the thighs, just a small portion.

The feet are in-laid with mother-of-pearl. I only heard this mentioned about 10 times so I imagine it's important to point out.

Foot close-up, rotated:

Along the backside of the Buddha are 108 bronze bowls. You can exchange a note for coins to drop in the bowls for good fortune. 

This is the back of the Buddha's head.

Outside that building is a large courtyard with small gardens and paths to several other buildings.

This is a shot of another group of visitors. I took it to show that even in Thailand you can't avoid the obnoxious guy in the Michigan T-shirt.

These are a bunch of the Buddhas that King Rama V purchased for the temple.

Some are more polished than others.

Some children were practicing some traditional Thai dance in one courtyard.

It's a pretty place for a butterfly to chill out.

Wyatt got really into the prayer part of the visit. It really was amazing though how calm the kids would get when we would walk inside. The temperature was certainly in the 90s and it had been a rainy, yucky morning so it was all sticky and the air was very heavy. Add that to a large crowd of people and a whole lot of walking and listening to historical facts and there could have been some problems, but no kidding, there weren't any. We would walk in quietly, kneel or sit criss-crossed, and breathe. These were very precious moments indeed.

And after a couple of quick hours, it was time to cross the street to find our next wat, which was across the Chao Phraya River.