Thailand Trip Report Day 12 Bangkok Grand palace, Wat Pho, Wat Arun
November 25 Tuesday Bangkok: Grand palace, Wat Pho, Wat Arun
STAY: Yellow Ribbon Hills Boutique Suites Bangkok
The Grand Palace
The Grand palace is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Thailand, with over eight million people visiting each year.
The palace has been the official residence of the Kings of Siam (and later Thailand) since 1782. The king, his court, and his royal government were based on the grounds of the palace until 1925. the Grand Palace is still used for official events. Several royal ceremonies and state functions are held within the walls of the palace every year.
Grand Palace is made up of numerous buildings, halls, pavilions set around open lawns, gardens and courtyards. Only the temple of Emerald Buddha is open for visitors though, rest can only be admired from outside
Construction of the palace began on 6 May 1782, at the order of King Phutthayotfa Chulalok (Rama I), the founder of the Chakri dynasty, when he moved the capital city from Thonburi to Bangkok
In 1782 the new King decided to move the capital city to the left bank of the Chao Phraya River for strategic purposes and used the canals to the west as defenses for the new city.
A palace was constructed whose grounds currently covers an area of 218,000 square metres that are enclosed by crenallated walls measuring 19,000 metres. Similar to palaces in the former capitals of Sukhothai and Ayudhaya this palace is also laid out with Halls of Residence and Throne Halls as well as administrative buildings and a temple that serves as the Chapel Royal
Quite underwhelming day for us
In Bangkok The Grand Palace, Wat Pho
and Wat Arun combo of sites are the most famous and visited by
tourists. Turned out quite underwhelming day for us,
1st
things 1st
We knew they'll be terribly crowded .
We had already downloaded the maps and collected all the information
from the official sites .
Ticket for grand palace can be bought
easily at the site . The dress code is very strict and they were
sending away many tourists who were not adhering to their standards .
We took a grab taxi as usual and
arrived at the entrance and bought the ticket.
Though there are many buildings only
the emerald Buddha temple is open for visitors.So we went straight to
the temple, no pictures are allowed inside but like everybody else we
zoomed in from outside and took a picture of the Buddha . With all
the crowd the experience was a little underwhelming .
Thankfully
we've seen similar halls in Bangkok itself as well as in ChangMai
with traditional murals on the walls and huge Buddha, as well as
replicas of emerald Buddha in so many other different temples . Even
the architecture outside was nothing too special for us because right
from the ancient city Muang Boran museum we had visited, they had
replicated it very well and we had become familiar with the beauty of
colored glass and gold tiles on the exterior .
The Prasad Phra Thepbidon Royal Pantheon is a building that has a Prang or corncob spire surmounting its roof. Geometric patterns of coloured glass mosaics adorn its exterior walls and pillars that are interspersed .with ceramic tiles. Constructed in the reign of Rama IV with the intention of using it for royal ceremonies and to enshrine the Emerald Buddha at eye level but when completed it was deemed that the size was inappropriately small. When an electrical fire destroyed the roof structure in 1903 requiring extensive repairs that continued into the reign of Rama VI who decided to relocate life-size gilt-bronze statues of his predecessors and place a bronze life-sized statue of his father, Rama V, into this sacrosanct building dedicated as a Royal Pantheon.
At present life-sized bronze statues of the former sovereigns of the Royal House of Chakri, Rama I to Rama IX, are ensconced in the original three wall niches and on gilt platforms in order that the Royal Family can pay their respects at appropriate times. The Royal Pantheon is also annually opened to the general public on specific dates as follows:
exterior walls are decorated with gilt and coloured glass mosaics fashioned into geometric patterns
Giant Asura Guardians
Six pairs of statues of Asura or giants are placed as guardians with their backs to the gates inside the temple compound facing the Phra Ubosoth to show deference to the Emerald Buddha.
Built in the reign of Rama III they represent characters from the Thai Ramakien which is a story authoured by King Rama I based on the ancient Sanskrit Ramayana Epic. The Ramakian story of the First Reign is also depicted in the murals of the cloisters with scenes of Gods and humans, palace and pastoral scenes as well as battle scenes among humans and armies of demons and monkeys
Replica of Angkor Wat
Rama IV was interested in moving Angkor Wat the famous 12th century stone Khmer temple to the Grand Palace. After extending influence over Cambodia, Rama IV wanted to bring Angkor Wat to Bangkok as a powerful symbol of Thai suzerainty and cultural connection.
Two expeditions were sent to dismantle and move the massive temple, but the projects were too difficult and ultimately abandoned, with advisors dissuading the king. Rama IV ordered a replica built as a consolation and symbol of power.
He died before seeing it finished, but his successor, Rama V (Chulalongkorn), saw the project through, with the replica completed around 1882.
it stands as a hand crafted miniature of a renowned architectural marvel.
the province where Angkor is located is known as Siemreap, meaning “the defeat of Siam,” a result of Siamese king Chairachathirat’s failed campaign to re-conquer Angkor in the 16th century...
Phra Ubosot (Convocation Hall)
The Phra Ubosot is constructed in the midst of a chest height boundary wall with eight double-sema boundary stones that mark a consecrated area and the double-sema boundary stones signify that the temple was constructed by a king.
Built in accordance with traditional Thai style architecture with multi-tiered roofs of coloured tiles with finials, roof ridges, and lotus-captal pillars this building of brick and white washed plaster has exterior walls that are decorated with gilt and coloured glass mosaics fashioned into geometric patterns.
The interior west wall above the doors is painted with the conception of Buddhist cosmology while the east wall depicts the scene of temptation and enlightenment of the Buddha.
The south and north walls depicts episodes from the traditional life-story of the Buddha and below the windows on the south wall is a long mural of a rivereine procession of fanciful royal barges manned by diversely dressed oarsmen whereas the north wall depicts a land procession with persons of importance astride horses or on caparisoned elephants with armed personnel marching in rank and file formation.
The base of the Ubosoth on the north and south side is decorated with 112 gilded bronze Garuda seizing 2 Naga by their tails while clutching their heads.
Pairs of bronze Singha lions guard the 6 east and west doors that have door panels of expertly crafted mother-of-pearl inlay of gods and demons and mythical animals of the Himavamsa Forest in the heavenly abodes. The 9 mother-of-pearl inlay panels of the 9 north windows and 9 south windows have also been crafted to exacting standards.
Wat Phra Kaew/ Temple of Emerald Buddha
.Emerald Buddha, an object of national veneration is carved from a block of jasper in the attitude of meditation and is enshrined high up on a tiered base in an altar of gilded wood designed to represent the Busabok aerial chariot of heavenly beings.
Because of its colour it is called the “Emerald Buddha”
it measures 66 cms. in height that includes the base and is 48.3 cms. in width from knee to knee.
Believed to be of northern Thai workmanship of the 15th century the image has three different raiments which are changed by the king on specified dates of the lunar calendar. The raiments for the summer and rainy seasons were dedicated by King Rama I and the winter raiment was dedicated by King Rama III.
All of the raiments are exquisitely crafted from gold and embellished with diamonds and precious stones.
Two large gold plated royal-attired Buddha images of 3 metres height in the attitude of Calming the Ocean was cast in 1848 by King Rama III and placed in front of the high altar containing various Buddha images. The one to the north was named Phra Buddha Yod Fa Chulalok in dedication to his grandfather, Rama I. The one to the south was named Phra Buddha Loetla Sulalai in dedication to his father, Rama II. (Renamed as Phra Buddha Loetla Napalai in the Fourth Reign) The names of these two Buddha images thus became the names of the two preceding kings, who had hitherto been referred to as ”The Initial Reign” and “The Middle Reign”.
178 Episodes of the Ramakien story
The Cloisters that enclose the Temple buildings have walls that are painted with 178 episodes of the Ramakien story as composed by Rama I and follows Prince Rama’s quest to rescue his beloved wife, Sida, from the clutches of Thosakan [Ravan], the ten-heads and twenty-arms demon King of Longka.
The episodes are painted in a clockwise progression starting from the north door of the cloister opposite the Phra Vihara Yod chapel. Its scenes depict gods and humans, monkeys and demons, life inside and outside the palace and cities while four legged animals, birds and mythical animals of the Himavansa Forest abound in the jungles, plains and oceans.
We had done extensive research and seen the differences between the Indian version Valmiki Ramayan and this Thai version. I had made some cheat codes:Sugrev brown monkey, Bhali green monkey, his son angad also green, jambhavan bluebear,black monkey Nilapat Jambhavan's adopted son; Bharat brown, shatrugan green; Ram's palace is in Grand palace design as in 121 etc. I had also prepared 2 pages describing each panel. Armed with all this we approached the Ramakien gallery
Bad experience for us and other vsistors because of Guards
Our main focus was the ramakin gallery . We were surprised Guides were taking their clients in an anti clockwise direction. We tried to see from the beginning there were some panels closed for renovation but when we were hardly halfway through, the guards barricaded the gallery and refused to let anybody through; in fact they were the ones making everybody go anti clockwise . It made no sense, you need to see anything in sequence but they cared two hoots for visitor experience.
A huge part of the gallery was cordoned off and there were chairs put there with some Thai convention going on with people dressed in black sitting there meeting for hours . They were not even looking at the murals, it was just a place of meeting for them but it effectively ruined visitor experience as we could not see the panels they were blocking .
It was very disappointing for us because we had put in a lot of effort doing a research of each panel from the website and identifying the characters and the incidents going on which had been portrayed. Even after we had completed seeing whatever else was in the complex and tried to go back, the meeting was still on and only when we were leaving, those people were also leaving. You can see the huge line of people here in these pictures.
I think the whole day the gallery would have been cordoned off because they are not going to remove those chairs . Such a pity they did not care about paying visitors experience . In the grand palace only the emerald Buddha temple and this gallery afford good visitor experience, the rest you can only see from outside . Such a shame really . So the grand palace experience was pretty underwhelming for us.
Hanuman creating a bridge with his tail for the monkey friends to seek Sita's whereabouts
Ravan arrives at Sit'a abode and tries to woo her, leaves in anger when she rebuffs him. In the top right, Sita is trying to hang herself from the tree, Hanuman stops her
Sita is trying to hang herself from the tree, Hanuman stops her with a ring from Ram
Hanuman creates a ruckus and gets caught as part of his plan to reach the palace
Hanuman sets fire to Ravan's palace
Multiarmed Ravan fleeing with his queens
Hanuman quencing the fire in the ocean, then gets sage Narad's advice to quench the last bit in his tail...
Hanumna reports back to Ram [Ram and Laxman are bathing]and gets his robe as reward
Ram, Laxman with their monkey troops
Monkey army demonstrating their prowss to Vibeeshan, Ravan's brother who has defected and come over to join Rama
Ravan sends a demon as an eagle to spy, eagle gets hurt by a stone, changes to a monkey, Hanuman catches him
Eagle getting hit by stone injuring its wings
Demon caught and tortured, Tattoed on forehead and sent back to Ravan
Benaki, Vibeehan's daughter changes herself to look like Sita, Ravan is so enamored!
Benaki floates as dead corpse in the river near Ram's abode. Ram cries lamenting Sita with he body in his lap.
Hanuman lights a funeral pyre to smoke out the demoness,
Benaki tries to flee, Hanuman catches her, she becomes his lover [see the cave scene] and then leaves
Ram asks Hanuman to build a bridge to Lanka in a week... there is no progress as mermaid queen is sabotaging
Hanuman catches her, she becomes his lover [again see the cave scene!]and returns all the stones her gang had looted,
Love scene
Demon king of underworld has a dream he'll find a son
Mermaid queen givs birth to Hanuman's son , monkey with a fin tail, names him Machanu and leaves him, the demon king finds him and adopts
Angad [Vali's son] goes as messenger to Ravan, breaks the gate as he's not allowed to enter
Angad [Vali's son] makes a seat out of his own tail as Ravan did not offer him a seat
Ravan puts up a divine umbrella to shield/hide his palace, Sugriv breaks it and Ravan's queens topple
Vibeeshan warns Ram will have some bad fortune and should be careful till dawn. Hanuman guards him by putting Ram in his mouth. But the demon uses a sleeping potion and kidnaps Rama
Sleeping Ram is kidnapped
This is older story... Ravan's brother in law was entruted with guarding his palace when Ravan was away on vacation, after 7 sleepless days, nights, he slept wrapping the palace with his tongue. Ravan returned, could not see his palace, deployed a weapon which pierced the tongue and killed the demon
This is Rava's brother Kubhkaran's prayers being ruined by Hanuman and Sugriv who stink up the river floating as a dead dog and crow
Ram -Sita coronation
Ram-Sita marriage
as you can see we could see panles in haphazard order only, totally ruining the experience. Also many episodes were cordoned off for the convention
Phra Vihara Yod Chapel
Constructed by Rama III to replace a Rama I building for Buddha images cast from the remains of bronze Buddha images collected from the ruins of temples in the old capital of Ayudhaya the chapel also accommodated the Phra Nak that was moved from the former Ho Phra Nak. The building is decorated with porcelain dishes and plates imported from China or pieces that were broken during transport and fashioned into floral and geometric patterned mosaics. Plaster covered with porcelain also replaced traditional wood structures such as pediments and finials and porcelain also decorated the Thai Crown spire that surmounted the roof.
Phra Sri Rattana Chedi
This bell-shaped chedi or stupa of brick and mortar that was constructed in 1855 during the reign of Rama IV to house relics of the Buddha was originally white-washed but was later covered with gold mosaic tiles imported from Italy during the reign of Rama V in time to mark the centenary of Bangkok in 1882. Gold mosaic tiles were again imported in 1982 to retile damaged parts of the chedi as part of the major renovation of the temple for the bicentenary of Bangkok during the reign of Rama IX.
This is not Ramakien, but Vishnu in the cosmic ocean of milk
Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles
again we had seen all these types of royal dresses earlier at Bang pa in palace etc
Wat Pho
We walked on to Wat Pho.
Wat Pho is one of the largest and oldest wats in Bangkok covering an area of 50 rai or 80,000 square
metres. It is home to more than one thousand Buddha images, as well as one of the largest single
Buddha images at 46 metres (151 ft) in length.
The temple is first on the list of six temples in Thailand classed as the highest grade of the first-class royal temples. It is associated with King Rama I who rebuilt the temple complex on an earlier temple site. It became his main temple and is where some of his ashes are enshrined.The temple was later expanded and extensively renovated by Rama III
Reclining Buddha
The wat and the reclining Buddha (Phra Buddhasaiyas) were built by Rama III in 1832.
The image of the reclining Buddha represents the entry of Buddha into Nirvana and the end of all
reincarnations.The posture of the image is referred to as sihasaiyas, the posture of a sleeping or reclining lion.
The figure is 15 m high and 46 m long, and it is one of the largest Buddha statues in Thailand.
The figure has a brick core, which was modelled and shaped with plaster, then entirely covered in gold. The right arm of the Buddha supports the head with tight curls, which rests on two box-pillows encrusted with glass mosaics.
There are 108 bronze bowls in the corridor representing the 108 auspicious characters of Buddha.
Visitors may drop coins in these bowls as it is believed to bring good fortune, and it also helps the monks to maintain the wat.
It is very famous for its reclining
Buddha but the hall has been very poorly designed, the big tall
columns very close, hardly a foot away nearby the reclining figure
totally blocking off a full view. So the beauty of the enormous
statue cannot be enjoyed fully from anywhere, you only get a side
view.
It is very surprising why they chose to design this way . There
have been many monumental Buddhas in big halls where the main deity
has been enshrined affording a full view for devotees without
pillars in front .
The soles of the feet of the Buddha are 3 m high and 4.5 m long, and inlaid with mother-of-
pearl. They are each divided into 108 arranged panels, displaying the auspicious symbols by which
Buddha can be identified, such as flowers, dancers, white elephants, tigers, and altar accessories.] At the
center of each foot is a circle representing a chakra or 'energy point'.
Wat Arun
Wat Arun, the "Temple of Dawn," is a Buddhist temple situated on the west bank of the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok. it was named after the Indian god of dawn, Arun. It was here that, after the destruction of Ayuthaya, King Taksin stumbled upon a small local shrine and interpreted the discovery as an auspicious sign that this should be the site of the new capital of Siam.
It is located on the Thon Buri side of the Chao Phraya River directly opposite Wat Pho. We walked to the pier from Wat Pho and took the ferry.
Entrance fee : 200 baht
It used to enshrine the Phra Phuttha Maha Mani Rattana Patimakon (the Emerald Buddha) that was brought from Vientiane.
It is a temple that has existed since the Ayutthaya period. Its large pagoda is 82 metres high and 234 metres wide
It has fabulously ornate floral mosaics made from broken, multihued Chinese porcelain, a common temple ornamentation in the early Ratanakosin period, when Chinese ships calling at the port of Bangkok discarded tons of old porcelain as ballast
The murals date from the reign of Rama V (King Chulalongkorn; r 1868–1910); particularly impressive is one that depicts Prince Siddhartha encountering examples of birth, old age, sickness and death outside his palace walls, an experience that led him to abandon the worldly life. The ashes of Rama II are interred in the base of the presiding Buddha image.
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