Wat Pho, Bangkok

Today we headed to Wat Pho, which used to be a Royal Monastery, to get there we travelled by Skytrain and then caught a river boat. Travelling around here is really cheap, the train cost 56p and the boat 30p. This of course didn't go strictly to plan, as we got off at the wrong stop and had to walk the last bit through an area like a fish market, where people go to get their daily stock of fruit, vegetables, flowers and things like that to sell, but it was quite interesting to see. As David says exploring! 

They try many scams here to get your money, the travel guides have a lot of information on things not to do or believe. As we walked to Wat Pho a man told us that it was shut for dinner time and that it would reopen at two, so we could wait, conveniently in his restaurant. We ignored him went to Wat Pho and it was open. 

One of the boats on the river. 

The buildings in Wat Pho have a lot detail on them a lot of which glistened away in the sunlight. As we went in there was the most miserable person on the till, I don't think she even spoke, she definitely didn't crack a smile or appear welcoming. Maybe she was having a bad day. 

One of the lovely planted areas dotted around. It was really hot day so these places were nice to sit in for a bit of shade.  On the ticket it said we could get a free bottle of water and we were getting desperate, so David said he would go back and ask Mrs Happy on the till where you got it from, sadly he couldn't get back through the turnstile,  although  I think he was secretly relieved. 

One of the stone guardian statues at the gate, some were quite fierce looking, others were very comical.  These were used as stone ballast in ships.

Phra Buddha Chinnaraj.

That is the name of this Buddha, I am not just spouting gobbledygook at you. 

Another gate guardian.

All of these intricate buildings have Buddhas in. 

Buddhas galore

And more gate guardians! 

It was lovely wandering around the area, although there were a lot of tourists and yet another school trip, honestly do any kids actually go to school in these countries, it had a nice calm atmosphere. Probably because most people were quietly going around. The teachers mind you had loud hailers in which they were talking to the children! 

Phrase Buddha Lokanat.

This image depicts Buddha standing up which is unusual, as you can see by the people in front of it, it is really big. That is David with one of the school children, they seem to like hanging around us. 

Phra Buddha Maravichai

Even more Buddhas there were loads sitting along corridors, 394 to be exact.

There were statues of dragons, cows, mythical beasts all over the place.

This is just one of the windows which also had a lot of detail on it. 

This is the famous reclining Buddha which is 46 metres long and 15 metres high.

Can you imagine building this and then not getting it through the door! This is where a lot of the tourists were and there were a lot of signs warning to watch out for pick pocket gangs. Today I had a pashmina shawl nicked from my backpack, and I think it might have happened here. I had taken the shawl in case I needed to cover my arms in the temples. There are strict rules about what you can wear in temples, shoulders and legs should be covered and hats should be off. If you are not dressed properly you are given clothes at the door to put on.

The reclining Buddha's feet, you can see how big they are by the woman standing beside them. They are 5 metres long and 3 metres high. 

This is a close up of the feet, they are inlaid with mother of pearl.

A lovely waterfall area with fish, koi I think.

A close up of the detail in the buildings. 

I think this statue looked quite comical! 

It was really interesting walking around this place and it was amazing to see all the detail that had been put into the buildings. It is worth a visit and very reasonably priced, £2 to get in and we got our bottle of water, lovely and cold, bliss!