12 days in Bangkok - day 9 - Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho temple, more long exposure

Hello!

I skipped a couple of days again, I spent some more time with my friends and didn't do much exploring or photography. But they moved on and I'm back again :)

I'm writing this entry on Sunday but events described actually took place on Saturday.

I went to visit the temple of Wat Pho, built by king Rama I. in 17th century on an older temple site. Some of king's ashes are enshrined there.

The temple houses the largest collection of Buddha images in Thailand, but is most well known by a 46m long statue of the reclining Buddha. Wat Pho temple is the first temple where they built the reclining Buddha, who represents the historic Buddha during his last illness.

To get to the temple, I had to take the skytrain to the same station where the Ghost Tower is, and then jump on a boat and ride on it for about half an hour.

The temple complex itself is huge, and it's absolutely packed with tourists, which means I didn't really enjoy the experience. I managed to make some photos anyway.

The first one I want to share was taken from the boat, just after we started to ride. I liked the way sun rays were coming through the cloudy sky:

As we were making our way to the temple, the weather cleared up, and when I disembarked, the day was bright and hot. After paying 100 THB at the entrance of the temple, I was able to enter it. The first thing I noticed were all those statues of guards; they stood at practically every door - which the temple doesn't lack. This one in particular looks like he's guarding the tree (those small trees are also numerous throughout the temple):

The river of people took me straight to the entrance of the reclining Buddha building. You have to take your shoes off before entering; they even provide a plastic bag to put them in.

Although the room itself is huge, the statue is so enormous that it feels crammed in there, more so with all the people trying to get selfies, shots of Buddha, some even come to pray there. Here is what you see after entering:

As we walked along the statue, I made some more pics, to try and show you how big the thing is:

Those are Buddha's feet; they made them from marble and the details are amazing:

From the moment I entered the room, I could constantly hear some clinking noise coming from the backside of the statue. It almost sounded like music. As I made my way around Buddha's feet, the reason became apparent: you can donate 20 THB to the temple, and they give you a small aluminium cup, filled with cents(?) which you then throw into the metal bowls, positioned against the wall:

The sound of approximately 60 people throwing the coins simultaneously made that musical sound.

Upon exiting the building, I took a stroll around the temple and took some more pictures. The place is so packed with tourists that it's practically impossible to get a shot without people in it, so I decided to mostly stick to details:

I found a section open to public, but no-one went in there, so I took the chance and peeked in. What did I discover? More Buddhas, of course:

All of the temple looks pretty much the same, and while I can respect the amount of work and dedication the builders must have put in building it, it isn't really interesting to spend hours in there, so I moved on. I went back to the boat and took a train back to the hostel, where I had a quick lunch and then headed back out towards Chinatown, where I wanted to get a shot of the road, encircling the gate that represents the entrance. I succeeded to a degree; I need a new camera and a better lens and the result would be amazing:

I took the pic from parking garage, where I had to bribe the security guard with 50 THB to let me go up. After getting the pic, I headed back towards home again, and took one more long exposure of those decorated trees:

That was all for Saturday. Today I'm going on a photo walk with a group of photographers located in Bangkok (thanks to @tommyl33 for informing me about that!) and tomorrow I'm going to the old Siam capital, Ayutthaya, where I'll surely be able to make some great photos.

See you all in a bit!

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