When we went into one temple room in Wat Arun, there was a monk sitting one a raised platform, and everyone stood on the edges of the room. There was a man sitting on the floor next to the monk, speaking to the room in general in Thai (which none of us tourists knew). Eventually I got the idea that we were being invited to come sit in front of the monk. Alex and I went up, kneeled on the floor and got a blessing. The Monk tied a sai sin around both of our wrists after sprinkling us with water. The sai sin is a Buddhist tradition of a white cotton thread bracelet, blessed in advance by a monk, to provide protection and good health to the person wearing it.
I was told that it is ok to take it off after 3 days but not to cut it, just untie the knot.
After walking around Wat Arun and not finding the reclining Buddha (because it’s across the river in another temple) we were all a little hot, and hungry -which for my group equals hangry. We decided to take the ferry across to the side of the river we needed to be on and then from there find some lunch.
While we were waiting for the ferry, we noticed across the way was a cute little restaurant right by the water with a patio and I thought it would be a great place to go. When we got off the ferry though, we couldn’t figure out how to get to it. So we wandered down an alleyway that had street food and figured we’d keep wandering until we found something that smelled or looked good.
In this alleyway, I found a medium-sized neighborhood shrine.
Alex was very excited about his lunch because he got “real pizza” which is something a bit hard to find in China. And Mark had a thai curry, and I had a fantastic Chilean Sea bass. Really lovely spot, fantastic owner (who warned us of a few scams around Wat Pho), and great service.
There are so many rooms and buildings at Wat Pho, it’s hard to see them all (and Alex really didn’t want to see them all).
We did lose Alex in one of these temple rooms, he wasn’t paying attention that we had moved on and went somewhere that was closed to tourists. He was delivered back to us with a scolding from the lady who found him about staying with us for the rest of the time.
The enormity of some of the Buddha’s and some of the temple rooms surprised me. And for the most part, how respectful most people were- which isn’t always the case with tourists.
At this point, we still haven’t even made it to the grand finale of the reclining buddha, although we know we are losing Alex’s interest and patience.
We walk to the big building, take off our shoes, and get ready for the big reveal.
Even knowing how big the reclining Buddha is, I was unprepared for how big it really is.
Alex’s face when he saw it was worth the whole trip.
I don’t know what he thought we were going to see, but it was much bigger than he expected
While we were walking along, marveling at the Buddha, we kept hearing this odd sound, like raining metal. We couldn’t wait to get on the other side of the Buddha to finally see whatever it was.
On the other side of reclining Buddha, are 108 alms bowls. The raining metal sound comes from people dropping their coins (you can exchange 20 baht- which is about $0.75 for a bowl of small coins) and the goal is to put one in each bowl. It is an offering for Buddha, but also practically helps fund the upkeep of the temple and grounds.
After we were done with our offerings, we took one look back at the Buddha before heading out.
That night we walked down to a place famous for curry crab. Alex was a little celebrity, and the wait staff made sure he had everything he could need or want- we were all three of us a bit of a novelty, I got the impression that they didn’t have westerners in there all that often. We had a fantastic crab curry, a grilled crab, and a special kind of soup (that I’ve forgotten the name of). And then we all crashed for the night.
End of Day 2 in Bangkok…
Traveling Expat Family 