Wat Pho and Wat Arun in Bankok
16. July. 2011
For a minute, I tried to choose the picture for thumbnail,
but I gave it up.
Any images in the pictures were soooo good.
The picture shown first was I guess Wat Phra Kaew in the Grand Palace.
Because that day was a national holiday,
we didn't pay the entrance fee
in any of the Grand Palace, the national museum and Wat Pho.
We just walked through this place and that place.
That's why I couldn't distinguish
where the pictures were taken.
Each towers has a different color but a same shape.
The impression about all the structures, shrines and towers on me was colorful.
I am blind for art and Buddhism though
it was wonderful that using common colors on earth, they made their own cultural things.
Fortunately, I could watch the shifting practice by royal guards.
This is the very famous lying statue of the Buddha,
which is 46 meters long and 15 meters tall.
I barely could take a picture of the whole statue.
It seemed very cute for me that there are toeprints.
Cross from the statue,
there are a lot of pots for donation.
People were praying while passing by and putting coins on them.
That made very noisy sound like cha-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra...
I heard Wat Pho can be called the museum of the Buddhist statues.
There were lots of Chedis.
Chedi is the tower that has high priests remains or kings' remains in.
There are a lot of big and small colorful chedis.
I lost the picture that shows
people were attaching golden patches on a certain Buddhist statue.
Because the sky was getting darker and darker,
we hurried to head for Wat Arun.
We walked to the dock and bought tickets.
I remember it was 2 baht each.
We were gonna get on the ship to cross the river.
The ticket office was located in the local market.
There were many people and shops.
If we had had more time, we could have sightseen the shops.
But we had to be 6 : 30 on the tour office,
so we just passed the market.
We were in the line and the ship was arriving.
And the tower over is Wat Arun.
We could take any seats.
It took very short time to cross the river,
so people seemed not to care even if they couldn't sit on.
For entering Wat Arun, we had to buy tickets.
It costed 50 baht each.
When seen from the ground, the tower seemed not that stiff
but I was wrong.
The stairs are narrow even for me who have about 24cm feet.
So stepping downward made me careful and a little bit scared.
On the streets, there were many snack vendors.
Some sell mangoes, others sell pineapples.
We bought one pack of pineapple from this man.
I couldn't remember the cost,
but I still remember it was sweet
even for me that don't like pineapple.
On the way to the tour office on Kaosan road,
suddenly, we faced shower.
we didn't bring umbrellas.
we took out our raincoats but because of the heavy shower,
they couldn't cover all of us enough.
Anyway, we finally reached the tour office on time
and got the reservation documents for tracking.
We ate light dinner on one of the restaurants on Kaosan,
and stood in line for getting on the night bus for Chiang Mai at 8 o'clock.
There were lots of people waiting for buses.
In the bus, it was so cold.
we wore the windbreaker, but it didn't help.
The bus attendant gave us a bottle of water.
On the way to Chiang Mai,
the bus stopped by one expressway service area.
We were very tired, so we bought very small snack there and just slept all the way.
Next posting will be about the hiking.
I have to dig my photo albums for it.
