7 December, Wednesday
Yesterday, I took a 6 hour afternoon tour of several temple complexes (Wats) and a long-boat ride into one of the remaining canals or khlongs. Bangkok used to have as many canals as Venice or Amsterdam, but many of these have been filled up so roads and highways could be built to try to deal with the quadrupling of population in the last 50 years. The long-boat is a special Bangkok creation with a long, shallow, narrow boat powered by a diesel truck engine mounted on the stern with a long driveshaft extending behind.
We saw the Golden Buddha made of 5 1/2 tons of solid gold. The Marble Temple made with carerra marble from Italy. The Wat Pho where monks live in a quiet place in the middle of the city. And the Temple of Dawn across the river which is made of inlaid broken pieces of Chinese porcelain-- the Chinese porcelain objects broke during a storm during import by ship. The King decided to use the pieces in a mosaic.
1 comment:
The Golden Buddha was encased in cement after it was cast 400years ago to hide it from marauding enemies, then the creator of it died and no one knew that it was gold until a piece of the cement skin was accidentally knocked off revealing the gold.
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