C2-Bangkok Temple Tour

Wat Pho is one of the most visited temples in Thailand with 10,000 visitors in average per day.

Wat Phra Chetuphon, commonly known as Wat Pho, belongs to the first-class category of royal monasteries. It lies south of the Grand Palace and covers an area of over 20 acres. Wat Pho founded in the 16^th century, is the oldest and biggest temple with the largest number of pagodas (95 in all of various sizes) in the city and four great pagodas each 41 meters high.

Wat Pho was a local temple since Ayutthaya period, over 200 years ago. When the construction of The Grand Palace completed, King Rama I began the first restoration of Wat Pho in 1789 A.D. It took 7 years and 5 months. Later in 1831, the great restoration was done during the reign of King Rama III, took another 16 years and 7 months. All of the main buildings were expanded, and also The Reclining Buddha Image was built. The best royal craftsmen, artisans and the monks who participated in restoration of the temple, devoted themselves to fulfill the king’s ambition of using this temple as the Thai arts and knowledge center where descendants can come and study.

Therefore, this temple is regarded as The First Open University of Thailand where anyone can learn for free (if you can read Thai). The knowledge is depicted on stone slabs and attached to pillars in pavilions in this temple. It has been listed as ” Memory of The World” by UNESCO.

Wat Pho is well known for its huge Reclining Buddha, 46m long and 15m high which make it the largest reclining Buddha in Bangkok and the second largest in the country. The most interesting feature is the mother-of- pearl inlaid design on the soles of the feet showing the 108 auspicious signs arrayed in 67 small squares around the ‘chakra’, or a disc, at the center. It’s the characteristic of divinity, flowers, animals, other auspicious signs and the circle at the center of sole. Surrounding the wall of the chapel are mural painting depicted life of Lord Buddha followers, the painting at chapel pillars is a colorful design.

Next to Reclining Buddha Image building is the 4 great stupas. Each of them is 41 meters high, dedicated to the first 4 kings of Bangkok. The green one contains one of the very important Buddha Image from the former capital; Ayutthaya since it was too damage to restore. And as you see, there are lots of small stupas all around this area. Total number of stupas in this temple is 99. Let’s count.

We can see that, there are many stupas in Wat Pho. Yes, there are totally 99 stupas in various sizes. And the most significant are The Great Four Stupas which were built on the command of King Rama I, Rama III and King Rama IV. Each stupa is 41 meters high, decorated with colorful mosaics. The first one that was built is the green one which standing in the middle to cover the ruined Buddha image “Phra Srisanpetch”. This ruined Buddha image once was enshrined in The Royal Palace at Ayutthaya and was brought to Bangkok on the order of King Rama I.

The other three stupas are in white, yellow and dark blue color. These four huge stupas are dedicated to the first four kings of Chakri Dynasty who were alive and met each other in the same period of time. When the construction of the blue one finished, King Rama IV said that “There shouldn’t be construction of the great stupa anymore.” And he also ordered to build the wall around these stupas.

Before entering the main chapel, we pass the double layer gallery. Each layer exhibits Buddha images. There is a collection of important 1,248 Buddha images from the northern provinces. Some Buddha Images was distributed to various temples in and outside Bangkok. Only 394 of them are kept in this temple. The outer one presents 244 images and the inner layer presents 150 images.

The most important building of temple. The principal image in this hall is a Buddha Image in meditation posture. Not often that we will see the principal Buddha image in such posture. The main chapel or Phra Ubosot enshrines the principal Buddha image in the posture of meditation. The Buddha Image has name.”Phra Buddha Deva Patimakorn”. is his name. The meaning of Buddha Image name is the artistic beauty as if being built by divinity. There are stunning mural paintings depict a previous life of the Lord Buddha. Door panels at the entrance doors are inlaid with mother-of-pearl depict the Ramayana Story – the Great Indian Epic.

At the ground area, outside the building, there are many artificial hills with self- massage hermit statues sitting on these hills. The hermits or Rishi is doing physical exercise. To do physical exercise are supposed to cure illness. Moreover, there are many herbal trees growing on these hills. They can be used as medicine to combine with self-exercise to order to succeed in healing.

Another charm of Wat Pho tour is Chinese rockeries or ballasts from China, some are Chinese warriors; some are animals and some are lanterns in Chinese style which are found as the temple guardians. It is a smart way of Thai thought applying junk ballast for decorations in many places of this temple.

We had lots of trade with China in the reign of King Rama 3. We exported rice, teak wood and other heavy goods but on the way back the ship is not stable enough due to the goods that we brought back to Siam was the light stuff such as silk, pottery, so we got many ballasts to balance the ship.

Other interesting things in Wat Pho are hermit images in varieties postures. Many people from all over the world believe that the hermit posture or yoga can heal many symptoms or even make good personality if you practice regularly. Thai massage are developed from the hermit posture or Yoga. Wat Pho also has the massage school for those who would like to learn to be a massage therapist

Wat Pho temple ground can be a health park, the center of tradition medicine and knowledge. Also, these hermit figures are the starting point of Thai Traditional Massage which is listed as the Intangible Cultural Heritage by the UNESCO.

If you’ve never tried traditional Thai massage Wat Pho is a good place to start. It’s quite different to most other forms of therapeutic massage and tends to be invigoration rather than relaxing, incorporating yoga style postures to relieve stress and improve blood circulation.

If you want to learn more along with storytelling… book this tour with us, our tour guide will happy to tell you…

• Marble Temple

We are here at the third temple of this Bangkok Temple Tour. The official name of this temple is “Wat Benchamaborpit Dusitwanaram” but it is well known among tourist as the marble temple due to the beautiful decoration of the white marble from Carara city, Italy. The art of this temple combines with Thai, Khmer Chinese and western art together perfectly.

Marble Temple is famous for its main chapel built in white Carara Italian marble to house a replica of Thailand’s most beautiful Buddha image; this image is 2.5 tons of bronze. The decorations on the main chapel show fine workmanship.

This temple was built in 1900. It is probably misunderstood about the marble temple. Actually, it’s made of bricks and covered with marble which is about 3 centimeters thick. There is fluidity in the designs and the judicious use of colors against the white marble walls creates a pleasing effect of serenity.

There are two lions’ figures in front of the main hall. These lions look like the same style at The Emerald Buddha temple and many people said that the same style as in Cambodia

Now we are inside the ordination hall, housing the replica of the most beautiful Buddha image from the lower northern province of Thailand “Pitsanulok”

Inside the hall, over the window, you will notice the outstanding stain-glass in Thai designed and produced in Florence, Italy

Leaving the ordination hall and walk inside the gallery, you will see 52 different style of Buddha images such as Thai, Indian, Burmese Greek and Japanese. Here is a first museum of Buddha Images in Bangkok. Some of them are original, some are replica. The boundary stone which is engraved on the floor is something very rare to see.

Around the area, there are many interesting things such as; the pavilion that use to be the residence of king Rama 5 when he was a monk, the ancient drum 5.32 meters long that assumed to use during war time in 1903.

We have this program tour in our video on YouTube Channel. What you see in this video is just a part of Bangkok temple tour. We invite you to come to Thailand to show and tell you more, come and see the real thing.