Wat Pho

The time the trip was confirmed, I started checking out the specialties of Thailand. And this Buddha Statue came up in all the searches. This is also called - Temple of the Reclining Buddha.

The complete name: Wat Phra Chettuphon Wimon Mangkhlaram Ratchaworamahawihan. Wat Pho is better right :)

In the premises of Wat Pho

We reached there by around 10 in the morning. Like any other places in Thailand, this place was also clogged up with tourists. Majorly from US & Russia.

We already had the tickets ready and entered the premises. 

One specialty which Ani was pointing out was the shoe bag which they provided (we can carry it with us), as we have to remove the shoes to enter the structure. She was telling that the similar practice should be here in India.

I know why she told about it. I had a couple of bad experiences of losing my favorite shoes from the church premises. It happened once that when I came out my shoes were missing. I cannot walk bare foot and so I took someone elses shoes and went home. Then I realized that, the pain of losing the shoe was a chain. One person does the mistake and it goes through others.

Fantastic and colorful structure.

Wat Pho is named after a monastery in India where Buddha is believed to have lived.[4] Prior to the temple's founding, the site was a centre of education for traditional Thai medicine, and statues were created showing yoga positions.

Adjacent to the building housing the Reclining Buddha is a small raised garden, the centrepiece being a bodhi tree which is propagated from the original tree in India where Buddha sat while awaiting enlightenment. I clicked a picture with Ani in the canvas.

Wat Pho is one of the largest and oldest wats in Bangkok (with an area of 50 rai, 80,000 square metres), and is home to more than one thousand Buddha images, as well as one of the largest single Buddha images of 160 ft length: the Reclining Buddha.

Ani near to one of the golden color entrance

The image of reclining Buddha is 15 m high and 43 m long with his right arm supporting the head with tight curls on two box-pillows of blue, richly encrusted with glass mosaics. The 3 m high and 4.5 m long foot of Buddha displays are inlaid with mother-of-pearl. They are divided into 108 arranged panels, displaying the auspicious symbols by which Buddha can be identified like flowers, dancers, white elephants, tigers and altar accessories. Over the statue is a seven tiered umbrella representing the authority of Thailand. There are 108 bronze bowls in the corridor indicating the 108 auspicious characters of Buddha. People drop coins in these bowls as it is believed to bring good fortune, and to help the monks maintain the wat. Though the reclining Buddha is not a pilgrimage centre, it remains an object of popular piety.

I was amazed by the construction of the structure and the ambiance they had for meditation. Loves a place like that where you can sit all alone away from this world.

A Tuk-Tuk outside Wat Pho