Still More Tourist, Tourist Things, Tourist Town, Tourist Season: Wat Arun

The intricate artwork of Wat Arun

Wat is Wat Arun?  The official name is Wat Arun Ratchawararam Ratchawaramahawihan.  So forgive me for calling it just "Wat Arun."

Arrival via ferry-boat crossing the Chao Phraya River:

Wat Arun is known as the Temple of the Dawn.

It wasn't dawn, however.  The 14-degrees-north near-equatorial sun -- and the humidity -- were getting fairly intense by this point, now being in the afternoon.

The temple originally was constructed in the 17th Century.

Completed in the 19th Century, for the most part.  This is the "Thonburi" section of Bangkok.  Once its own town, but now absorbed into the mega-city of Bangkok.

Lots of posing for photos here, because, why not?  It's beautiful, ornate, and not like much else around town. 

You can climb up a few "stories," but the steps were not made for ordinary conveyance.

Big tall spaces between each step, as if they were designed for 10-foot tall people with 60-inch inseams.

The only problem with Wat Arun is that there is nothing in which you can go inside to escape the intensity of the sun. 

I guess the only way to escape the sun is to come here during the rainy season.  And what tourist wants to do that?

So "suffer in the sun" it is.

One of the strange things about Wat Arun is the number of people dressed in period costumes, taking photos of themselves.  Such as this.

There actually was a booth out front where you could rent period costumes.  No thank you.  But if I could've rented elephant pants, which date from the time period known as the 2020's, I'd have been all-in.

The organized tour of the tourist highlights of historic Bangkok came to its conclusion, Time for food, water, and a/c.

But that requires a trip back down to the river in a water taxi.

To the Iconsiam mega-mall.  Which was highly recommended to me.

Let's start the refreshment part of the tour with a lime soda.

Drink and a/c satisfied.  Time for food.  Then a sky train back to the hotel to rest these sun-baked bones.

More of a Tourist Doing Tourist Things, Tourist Town, Tourist Season: the Reclining Buddha

A teaser of the Reclining Buddha. He's giant!

The tour guide hired a few tuk-tuks and we were whisked off to the next stop on the major tourist sights to see when you're a tourist in a tourist town during tourist season who is unashamedly a tourist.

Welcome to Wat Pho.  Which is not a Faux Wat.  It's the real deal.  Let's step inside.

Wat Pho is packed to the gills with buddha statuary.

The first stop is the main stop: the Reclining Buddha.  The queue to get in, compared to the Emerald Buddha (who really is made of a jade), was relatively not a problem.

This is no "let's first see the less important attractions before we get to why we're here" tour.

You enter at the head side of the statue.  He's big.  Really, really big.

As you walk down through the temple, more and more of the buddha gets revealed.  And you actually can take photos of progressively more and more of the Reclining Buddha.

I thought this would be one wear you could not get a clear shot of the entire Reclining Buddha and, if you had good photo-editing software, you could stitch together a photo of the actual Reclining Buddha.  Nope.  No need for that.

We're almost at the end.

I will keep these cellphone chatterers in the picture for perspective on just how big the Buddha is.

And, finally, we reach the end.  The full Reclining Buddha.  Toes and all.

Even toeprints!  That, my friends, is attention to detail.  One last look:

The Buddha in statuary appears in a few different forms.  A Reclining Buddha means that the Buddha has reached the stage of enlightenment.  It's why he is able to recline.

It happened too quickly for me to get a photo, but some guy was wandering around in a Nirvana T-shirt.  Something tells me it was the grunge music nirvana and not the state of Buddhist enlightenment nirvana.  P.S.: rock band Nirvana: what was their best song.  Easy?  This one.  And it doesn't "smell" like anything.

There's more to Wat Pho than a muddy ol' river or a reclining Buddha.

Monks and stupa, for instance.

And more buddha:

You can see, just behind the buddha draped in orange, is a black buddha.  These buddhas are being refurbished.  These buddhas are all black under the skin, but then they are gilded with gold leaf to take on their final color.

Staff sleeping on the job:

Seriously.  That's why you have two people laying on the ground there.

This guy looks like he wants to attack with a kitchen utensil.

And we will conclude with prayers at a yellow-draped standing (not reclining) Buddha.  Standing upright is actually rare in Buddha.  Sitting legs folded underneath is the most common.  Reclining is fairly common.  Standing upright?  Not something the Buddha usually does.

The next stop requires a ferry-boat, not a water taxi.  There's a difference.

Tourist Doing Tourist Things in a Tourist Town During Tourist Season: Grand Palace and the Emerald Buddha

The grounds of the Grand Palace

Bangkok gets over 20 million tourist a year.  And every one of them was at the Grand Palace this morning.

Since this is the official royal residence -- ceremonial only -- the Thai Royal Family actually lives several blocks away at a place that is not over-run by the international tourist hordes on a daily -- there is a military guard on duty.

Lots of stupa here on the Grand Palace grounds.  There are so many that there is nearly one for every tourist.  Well, one for every 500,000 tourists.

As I said, Bangkok is tourist town.  It is packed with the tourist hordes.  But Bangkok is not one of those "too cool for tourists" towns like they have in Europe -- Barcelona I am looking at you -- tourism is a source of economic vitality.  Bangkok loves their tourist visitors and, so far, I've not seen anyone being even remotely overtly rude to the Bangkok population in return -- well, except for the incessant self-taking endemic to tourist towns around the globe.  Generally, everyone is happy.  Legitimately happy.  Not "fake smile for tips from tourists" happy.  Genuinely happy.

It pretty much offsets the problems of the massive numbers of tourists in Thailand.

The only problems seems to be pick-pocketing.  You constantly are being warned to be wary of pick-pockets.  So wallets in the front pockets.  It doesn't mean you're happy to see Thailand.

Let's see the tourist horde during tourist things at this tourist site in this tourist town during tourist season, shall we?

Unlike us Catholics, Buddhists never burn the incense inside the building.  Outside incense burning only.  An obsessive use of incense, however, is yet another parallel between the religious accoutrements of Buddhists and us Catholics.

Taking a break from looking at the tourist hordes and the beautiful architecture the tourists have come out to see, a golden stupa:

And here's one of the tourist horde over-dressed on this hot and humid day.

In the instructions for the tour, we were advised to dress "modestly," specifically no shorts or short-sleeved shirts and definitely no tank tops.  Or durian.  No durian either.

Is this a man or this is a chicken?

It's half-man, half-chicken.  Guarding the Buddha.

More tourists.  More stupa.

And check out the ceramic tile on the roof.  And the gilding:

This is a scale model of Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

The real one is much much much bigger.  And probably packed with at least as many tourists.

Another half-man half-chicken.

They're not as common as tourists or stupa.  But they are very prevalent throughout the grounds of Grand Palace

There is sort of clown vibe to this.

For the record, I am NOT anti-clown.  When clown-hating went mainstream, I decided to be the contrarian that I am and I am very much pro-clown.  All they want to do is make children happy.  Why are we so jaded that we do not appreciate a child's joy.  (Foreshadow on the word "jade," as that will play a role in the main sight of the Grand Palace.)

Flower delivery.

Landscaping related, I presume.  It's too early for Valentine's Day.

And here is a tourist posing with a half-man half-chicken.

The tourist has all of this teeth!  Thank you, late night dentist in Chiang Rai.

All the cool tourists were dressed in elephant pants.

Seriously.  These are loose-fitting pants, almost like pajama bottoms, with pictures of elephants on them.  You actually can buy them on the streets of Bangkok.  It's what all the best-dressed tourists are wearing this season.

And the people wearing elephant pants look so happy to do so.

We now arrive at the scene of the star attraction of the Grand Palace grounds.

The Temple of the Emerald Buddha.  Wat Phra Kaew.

This is the place where the tourist are packed most tightly.  Not photos allowed inside the temple, so this is the best picture of the Emerald Buddha I got.

It's not great, but this is the best picture I got of the Emerald Buddha using the extreme zoom function of my phone.

The Emerald Buddha is not made of emerald.  He's made of jade, which makes more sense from an Eastern perspective.  And he's well-traveled.  Discovered in Chiang Rai.  Moved to Chiang Mai.  Then to Laos.  Now in Bangkok.  Where the Emerald Buddha is extremely acessible to the tourist crowd.

And here's a monk taking pictures with his cellphone.  It's a new world for the monk trade.

Back to the crowds.

Crowds are light in this picture:

They must all be queued up to see the Emerald Buddha who really is made of jade.

And here's the gate to exit the Grand Palace grounds.

But let's look back one time at the (ceremonial) royal residence. 

And there's a changing of the guard ceremony happening outside the gate.  Which demands being photographed.

Time to march off to the next destination for the day's tour.