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Another day in Bangkok we took a couple of TucTucs and
the river taxis to visit some of the temples around the city.
The first, Wat Traimit, the Temple of the Golden
Buddha, unlike all the other Wats that we have been to in both Chiang Mai
and Bangkok, is a tiny, two-story building. However, the remarkable thing
about Wat Traimit is that the second floor of this temple is home to a
fifteen foot tall, five and a half ton solid gold Buddha, which by weight
alone they reckon is worth US$14M! The Buddha was concreted in the middle
of the 18th century to fool the Burmese army who looted Ayuthaya. King
Rama III had the statue moved to a temple in Bangkok (the new capital),
but the temple became disused around 1931 and the statue forgotten about.
In 1955 a company who were preparing the Buddha to be moved to Wat Traimit
apparently chipped some of the plaster off and found that this concrete
Buddha was actually made of solid gold!
The next one, although we didn't walk around it we had
awesome views of it from the river. We later found out that it looks
better from a distance than close up anyway! Wat Arun, also known as the
Temple of the Dawn, consists of a huge, tall "prang" (Khmer-style tower)
and is surrounded by four smaller prangs. TAT (Tourism Authority of
Thailand) reckon it's 104 metres high, but everywhere else says it's
around 80-85 metres. It is decorated with bits of porcelain
previously used as ballast on boats coming to Bangkok from China, a
hallmark of the reign of King Rama III.
The last temple we went to was Wat Pho, mainly famous
for the huge Reclining Buddha it houses. Wat Pho is the largest Wat in
Bangkok, and is technically the oldest too, as it was built around 200
years before Bangkok became Thailand's capital. As well as housing
Thailand's largest reclining Buddha image it also has the most number of
Buddha images in Thailand. The incredible gold plated Reclining Buddha is
46 meters long and 15 meters high, and is designed to illustrate the
passing of the Buddha into nirvana. The feet and the eyes are engraved
with mother-of-pearl and the feet also show the 108 auspicious
characteristics of the true Buddha. The large grounds of Wat Pho contain
more than 1000 Buddha images in total, most from the ruins of the former
capitals Ayuthaya and Sukhothai, as well as 95 Chedis.
The day after we went to Kanchanaburi we went to the
Grand Palace. The Grand Palace was built in 1792 and is probably most
renowned for being home to the Emerald Buddha. After seeing the Golden
Buddha and hearing all the hype about the Emerald Buddha we both expected
to see this giant Emerald image of Buddha, however, the "Emerald" Buddha
is in fact made from a block of Jade and only about two feet tall! It was
discovered in 1434 in Chiang Rai and was covered, like the Golden Buddha,
in plaster. The abbot who found the Buddha image noticed the green
underneath the plaster and thought it was emerald and the name has stuck
ever since. It is decorated in gold and has three "Costumes" for the
three seasons, Summer, Rainy Season and Winter and is changed in a
ceremony presided over by the king himself! Pretty important little fella
this Emerald Buddha eh!
One of the last days we were here in Bangkok was the
Thai New Year and more specifically, on 13 April 2006 it was the Festival
of Songkran, or to us, the Water Festival! Songkran means "move" or
"change place" as it is the day when the sun changes its position in the
zodiac. It is also known as the Water Festival as people believe that
water will wash away bad luck. Basically, it is all out warfare on
everyone, and your weapon is water! What you choose to propel the water
with is up to you, but there are trucks loaded with barrels full of water
and buckets driving round the streets and the people on these trucks just
soak anyone who comes close enough! The people on the street fight back
with buckets, water-pistols and anything else that can hold water! It is
hysterical to see and great fun to take part in, but you have to watch
what people throw as some water can be mixed with white clay and some of
the water comes from the river, which is disgusting and smelly! Obviously
I only got a couple of photos as there is no respect for the "farangs" or
their cameras. We even got soaked indoors at an Internet Cafe whilst we
were on the PCs talking to Angela's mum and dad! |