All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.~ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Twinkling glints of morning sunshine seemed to reflect off of every surface in sight as I stepped through the entrance gate of Wat Phra Kaew (The Temple of the Emerald Buddha). I slowly turned around in a circle to try to take it in, feeling as though I’d somehow found myself encased in a giant kaleidescope. Light danced across bits of mirrored glass and gold leaf as I tried to remember if I’d ever been anywhere quite so sparkly. My memory came up blank.
The temple, the most visited part of the Grand Palace of Thailand, was already teeming with visitors when Vince and I arrived. We’d chosen to sleep a little late that morning, and ended up arriving at the Grand Palace about an hour after it opened. Even the minor delay had left enough time for crowds to form on the temple grounds. The result was a scene of controlled chaos, where visitors swarmed the most interesting buildings, all trying to get their pictures taken in front of the temple’s gilded splendor.
And I, of course, was doing the same thing. As our tour guide from the previous day had said, “You came to Thailand to do three things: Eat, shop, and take pictures.” I don’t know about everyone else, but I’d certainly come to take pictures, and so far there’d been no shortage of awe-inspiring subjects to capture.
The Grand Palace was the official residence of the kings of Siam from 1782 until 1925. In fact, it’s the end result of the Burmese-Siamese War that forced the people of the Ayutthaya Kingdom to flee their territory. Eventually, this is where the new capital was established, and where it has remained until present day.
Nowadays, the palace is only used for official events. In fact, King Rama X spends most of his time living in Germany, and when he is in Thailand, he stays in the Dusit Palace (also in Bangkok). It’s difficult to imagine why the kings of Thailand would choose to leave such a phenomenally beautiful residence, but apparently the Grand Palace was lacking in modern comforts and amenities, and was very crowded (some things don’t change). So, although the Grand Palace remains the official seat of the monarchy, the kings went about building more modern places to better accommodate themselves and all of their courtiers and other palace residents.
Once the initial dazzlement of seeing Wat Phra Kaew had subsided enough for me to pick my jaw up off the floor, Vince and I began to explore in and around the temple and its surrounding buildings and chedis. The first thing to draw our attention was a gilded Kinnari sculpture. These folkloric, half-woman half-bird creatures are a symbol of beauty and grace in Thailand, and those qualities were perfectly embodied in the sculptural depiction.
In all honesty, I am much more knowledgable about nature, wildlife, and art than I am about history and the humanities. Names and dates have never been my forte, so I tend to experience historical sites on an emotional rather than factual level. As a result, I often visit sites like this with only a vague idea of what to look out for, and this palace was no exception. I knew that the main attraction was the Emerald Buddha image inside of the temple. What I wasn’t prepared for was just how distracting everything else at the site would be. Left to my own devices, I could have easily gotten stuck in an endless loop of wandering around, squinting at tiny details, and trying to envision how the craftsmen back in the 1780’s made everything.
Vince indulged me a hefty amount of aimless wandering and picture taking. We gaped at sprawling murals, mosaics made of various materials, and several towering statues of Yaksha (guardian giants) that stood sentinel around the temple.
But eventually he posed the question, “Was there something specific we’re supposed to be looking for?”
So we made our way over to the temple where we removed our shoes and hats, and shuffled along with a large crowd of people that were entering to see the famed Buddha image. The outside of the pillared temple was adorned in colorful glass and lined with hundreds of small Phra Khrut Pha statues. These half-man, half-bird creatures are used as the emblem of Thailand, and a symbol of the royal family. The inside was a chaotic jumble of elbows with scarcely any space to walk. I was vaguely aware that the temple was even more beautifully adorned in its interior, but the jostling crowd was just too much for me. Vince and I took a quick look at the Emerald Buddha, but we didn’t manage to get very close to it, and we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside of the building. The statue is actually made of either jade or jasper, not emerald, and it’s only 26 inches tall, so I didn’t get a great view of it from across the cavernous room. Rather than try to push our way closer through the crowd, Vince and I decided to head back outside.
There was plenty to see out there, and much more space to walk freely and comfortably. We took another lap of the temple complex, this time stopping for a closer look at Phra Mondop, a library that houses Buddhist scriptures, and a nearby chedi whose surface was covered in tiny gold-colored tiles.
Then we decided to start making our way to the next site we wanted to visit that day. However, it took us longer than expected to actually leave the palace grounds. The Grand Palace is a sprawling complex containing dozens of buildings and a few museums. Our entry tickets were actually good for a week, and covered entry to all of the museums on the site, as well as one-time admission to a cultural show that’s performed a few times a day. I would have loved to attend the show, so we walked over to the theatre to find the showtimes, but none of them would work with the limited time we had left in Bangkok.
Instead, we decided to pay a quick visit to the Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles before we left the palace grounds. Inside, we got to see a large collection of beautiful textiles, and clothes that were worn by Queen Sirikit, who was Queen of Thailand from 1950 to 2016. It was interesting to learn a bit more about the royal family, and it was also a relief to spend a bit of time in an air-conditioned building.
But soon it was time to step out into the hot sun again, as Vince and I walked the short distance over to Wat Pho. Along the way, we stopped for ice cream, and I bought a little folding fan in a desperate attempt to stay cool as we trudged through the hot and humid streets. When we arrived at Wat Pho, I was surprised to see that there weren’t many other visitors around. This was much more like the peaceful atmosphere that I’d come to expect from the Buddhist temples we visited in Nepal.
Vince and I paid our admission, then walked around a few chedis that were covered with colorful, tile mosaics. They weren’t as shiny or flashy as the mosaics at Wat Phra Kaew, but they were just as lovely.
It was a little hard to believe that the intricately decorated chedis weren’t the main attraction at Wat Pho, but the reason we’d actually stopped by for a visit was to see the temple’s famous reclining Buddha statue. There was only one building at the site that looked large enough to house a 46-meter-long statue. Vince and I made our way over to its entrance, where we quickly realized that all of the visitors that seemed to be missing were actually just crowded into one place instead of spread out throughout the temple grounds.
This time, though, the Buddha statue was too huge to miss. Rather than being engulfed amidst a sea of finery, the gargantuan statue was the clear focal point of the temple. It filled the majority of its chamber, with only a crowded passageway left over to walk around it. Thick pillars ran from floor to ceiling, and the statue came into clearer view with each pillar we passed. When we reached the end of the building, we could see the entire length of the statue, including the bottoms of its feet, which were adorned with 108 auspicious symbols.
It was no mystery why this temple is so popular. The massive, gilded Buddha image is a truly impressive sight. But my favorite part of this experience wasn’t seeing the statue itself.
One of the walls of the chamber is lined with 108 bronze bowls that represent the 108 auspicious characters of Buddha. On our way out of the temple, Vince and I made a small donation so we could drop coins into each of the bowls. This is believed to bring good luck, and it gave me an opportunity to slow down and focus on one thing amidst the teeming crowd inside of the temple. It also brought back fond memories of spinning prayer wheels along the trail in the Khumbu region of Nepal.
Back outside, we got a few more quiet moments as we walked around the temple grounds for a while longer. Then it was time to move on to the last temple visit I’d planned for the day. We walked over to Ta Thien Pier where we boarded a ferry that runs back and forth across the Chao Praya River. The silhouette of Wat Arun rose above the choppy water as the little ferry bobbed across the wide river.
Wat Arun was the temple I was most looking forward to visiting during our time in Bangkok. Something about having to cross the river to reach it appealed to me, and I felt a rush of anticipation as the ferry approached the other side bank. The dock was conveniently located at the entrance to Wat Arun, and we were handed much-appreciated water bottles when we bought our admission tickets. Then we made our way to the temple, passing by a garden of meticulously manicured bonsai trees along the way.
Wat Arun is also known as the Temple of Dawn, a name derived from the Hindu god, Aruna, who represents the dawn. Although Wat Arun is a Bhuddist temple (there has been a Buddhist temple at this site since the days of the Ayutthaya Kingdom in the 1300’s), it also incorporates Hindu imagery.
As Vince and I approached the central prang of the temple, I began to notice all of the fantastic details that adorned its exterior. At first glance, it was seemingly more understated than the Grand Palace with all of its gleaming finery, but upon closer inspection, Wat Arun was equally impressive.
Its mosaics weren’t gilded with gold leaf, but instead they were made from shells and porcelain that was previously used as ballast on ships that sailed from China to Bangkok. I was impressed with the ingenuity of repurposing the unwanted porcelain to create something beautiful and enduring.
Although the day was becoming unbearably hot, Vince and I climbed up the tall stairs of the prang, to get a better view of the temple grounds. We walked around the prang, admiring all of the detailed mosaic work, before admitting that we were both ready for a lunch break.
So we made our way back across the river, and stopped into a nearby restaurant where we had a delicious meal of Pad Thai and spring rolls. As we ate, we discussed how we wanted to spend the rest of the day. Eventually we landed on visiting Chinatown on our way back to the hotel, and after paying for our lunch, we set off in the direction of the nearest subway station. Not long after that, we stepped back out onto the hot pavement in Chinatown.
Admittedly, neither of us had any idea what to do in Chinatown in the middle of the day-the night markets seem to be its main draw. So we just started wandering aimlessly, and along the way we spotted people preparing for Lunar New Year by hanging paper lanterns across the streets. We didn’t know it at the time, but we would end up finding ourselves back in Chinatown at the start of Lunar New Year a couple of weeks later.
We continued wandering the streets until we found the perfect way to end our long day of walking around the hot city- a fish foot spa. My feet were killing me, so I talked Vince into joining me for a fish massage, and for about five USD, we got fifteen minutes to relax as dozens of tiny fish nibbled at our aching feet.
When I first dipped my feet into the tank, I couldn’t help squealing because the fish tickled them so badly. But eventually, I grew used to the sensation, and it started to feel relaxing. And it turned out that us sitting in the foot spa was just the advertisement that it needed, because several other tourists walked by and decided to get a massage after asking us how it felt.
When our fifteen minutes had elapsed, we dried off and put our shoes back on. My feet felt amazing and when we started heading back to Khaosan Road, I felt like I was walking on a cloud… for about a block. Then the sensation wore off and my feet were sore again.
By the time we made it back to our hotel, I was ready for another break. We’d checked out that morning and stowed our luggage at the front desk, but thankfully, the hotel staff allowed us to use the rooftop pool for a bit even though our stay was technically over. We spent a couple of hours swimming and lounging by the pool, until it was time to collect our bags and head to the airport for an evening flight to Phuket. The temples of Bangkok and Ayutthaya had been amazing, but I was beyond excited to start our journey through Southern Thailand the next day!
You can see more details of this amazing destination on my YouTube channel!
birdsoftheairtravel.com 