Wat Pho At Sunset.

This post was originally published on 25 Feb, 2023, and moved here, to my new blog.

Wat Pho!

We have been here before, about 20 years ago, but nothing has changed. I am not sure why I would be surprised by that, seeing as how it was originally completed around 1688 by King Rama I, and additions and expansions completed again in 1801 by Rama III, with no further changes since. Many of the temple buildings were designated as a school of medicine and the first school of Thai massage (Wikipedia says this temple is the “birthplace of traditional Thai massage”), and has been used since for public education.

One source of constant awe for me is the amount of time, energy, and resource that goes into maintaining these sites. They are absolutely perfect, with all the details and fiddly little bits perfectly maintained, and the oldest pieces are preserved somehow, even outside in this vicious climate.

This is just a little tour of our visit to Wat Pho. It was during sunset and dusk, into dark when they light the central (stupas/chedis/pagodas?). It is temple overload, so I only included twenty-five of the hundreds of pictures we ended up with.

Here goes…

The guards at the main gate, dealing with a couple of nerdy tourists. 

These gold leaf-encrusted buddhas always feel really powerful to me. I just feel better when I am around them. I am not sure why.

Some sources say this is the “largest” Buddha in Thailand, others say it is the “largest  reclining Buddha in the world”, so I am not sure, but it is 15 meters high and 46 meters long. 

One of my favorite forms of meditation is walking meditation, and this hall provided a great opportunity for this. 

This is a small section of very old statues that were recovered from the first capital city of Thailand, Ayutthaya, and moved here during the second rebuild of this temple when they filled the flooded surrounding swampland and added twenty-two acres to the grounds, around 1800.

Perfectly immaculate grounds.

This beauty…

If it has become tiresome, stop here, otherwise, we have a few more posts to go on the temples in Thailand.

To be continued…