Bangkok Buddha

Bangkok is everything Beijing is, but not freezing, less developed, and the people smile more. The alleyways are just as crowded, but the city doesn't stink as much, and the feel of the country is more vibrant, more alive. Without having any real basis for the opinion other than feel and a short 36 hours there, I find myself liking Thailand.

The morning after I arrive, Amanda and I wake up early with the objective of seeing as many temples and religious sites as possible while it's still daylight. This is due in large part to our fear that when we return to Bangkok, we will be "Shrined Out" and exhausted after spending a week and a half in Cambodia doing everything from an ecology trek to seeing Angor Wat.

Our first stop, the Royal Palace, has been home to the current Thai monarchy for more than 300 years, and occupied for even longer. Most of it is off limits, as is usually the case with actively occupied royal households. The current King is more than 80 years old, and has managed to keep nominal leadership of the country through more than 17 constitutional changes, coups, and a few bloodless revolutions. If HBO's Game of Thrones is boring you, I recommend the wikipedia page of Thai political history.

 Inside the palace grounds is the Temple of the Emerald Buddha and the surrounding monastery, which in my mind is even more interesting. The now unoccupied monastery serves as the personal chapel of the Thai Royal Family, and since one of the king's titles is "Defender of The Buddhist Faith," it is decorated accordingly. Strange ziggurats and pillars rise out of the ground, every surface covered in painted ceramic tiles or mirrors or gold leaf.

The inner courtyard walls are painted with an incredibly detailed re-telling of the mythic kidnap and war to recover the wife of a mythical Thai King. This Homeric odyssey features demons, armies of monkey men, giant gods and goddesses, and more than a few bloody battles. There's even a steamy scene between the King and Queen just before the kidnapping. More than a third of the frieze was being restored and was off limits, which of course only made me more interested. I resolved to learn more.

The Emerald Buddha is one of the most holy artifacts in all of Thailand, and possibly the Buddhist faith. The story goes that the Buddha (at this point covered in plaster) was discovered by villagers and delivered to a local abbot, who noticed that the plaster was flaking off the nose. Something green and shiny showed through underneath, and after flecking more off, the abbot discovered the core of the statue was exquisitely carved jade. He initially mistook the jade for emerald, and the legend of the Emerald Buddha was born.

It is exactly as spectacular as one would be led to believe, and the throne that the Buddha is enshrined upon is almost as magnificent as the Buddha itself. More magnificent than both of these however, is the floor to ceiling mural that covered all four walls of the temple.

I've been to the Vatican and seen the Sistine Chapel, The Duomo in Florence with its spectacular painted roof dome, and hundreds of painted ceilings in western churches and synagogues. This mural blew them all away. I can't show you any photographs, because they were forbidden, and I actually saw a Japanese tourist get into an altercation with the guards over his illegal filming of the temple. Besides, it's the kind of thing you can't really grasp with a picture.

After the Royal Palace, Amanda and I took a ferry across the river to see Wat Arun, the Temple of the Dawn. It towers above everything else in the area and has stairs that Mount Huashan would have nodded in approval of.

A ferry back across the river takes us to the Reclining Buddha.

  

The GIANT reclining Buddha is giant, which is really all that can be said for this gold plated monstrosity. In the same structure, there were a few more temples with murals almost as good as the Jade Buddha's, but again, no pictures.

These three temples took us nearly all day. Exhausted, sweaty, and deliciously full from all the street meat we could handle, Amanda and I made our way back to the hostel. 24 hours later we would be in Cambodia.   

- Doug