Bangkok Temple Tours

Please take off your shoes before entering the inside of a Thai temple.

It is considered very rude and disrespectful if you enter the inside of a temple with your shoes on.

That’s why before entering you should just leave them on the stairs.

You can see in the picture how the shoes are just left behind when entering the temple.

Sometimes there is also a shelf in front of the temple where you can put your shoes.

People pray on the ground in these temples and since it is a place of prayer and reverence for people it should be respected.

Wrathful Guardians at the gate of Wat SriboonReung, a Buddhist temple in Bangkok near the Mall Bangkapi at the final northern station of the small Bangkok river taxi.
These guards are supposed to keep out all evil – demons and ghosts, which are representations of destructive human emotions like anger, hate, intense desire, fear and others.
What’s typical for Thai temples is that they are stuffed as you can see if you look behind the guardians. There’s a bottle of washing detergent and then behind is there some other stuff stored below a buddhist donation shrine – it’s not an extremely tidy place, but it’s an alive place, a place that is frequented every day by hundreds of people. It’s really an integral part of everyday life.

Dat baht pra bradsham wan gued. (Make merit according to your day of birth).

For each day of the week there is one buddhist statue (plus one extra for general buddhism).

Thai people belief that it matters on what day of the week you are born – it’s kind of like with star signs in our culture, and every Thai person knows what weekday they were born on. This is just one example of how deeply rooted astrology is in Thai peoples minds.

The buddhist Thai week starts on sunday, so in the picture the first buddhist statue from the left is sunday, then monday, etc. In front of each buddhist statue there is a donation bowl and every person should make a donation according to the weekday they were born on.

Thai people belief that this brings good luck (‘chockdee’).

You can donate any amount of money – whether it is 25 satang (a quarter Thai baht) or 100 baht.

Typical multicolored glass-mirror decoration of a Thai temple in Bangkok.

Colorful glass mirrors are used in a mosaic fashion to decorate the walls of Bangkok temples. This is very unique to Buddhistic temples in Thailand, specially in Bangkok and is in sharp contrast to Japanese zen-temples who are very basic and plain.

In the detailed close up shot of one of the green circles which represent the inside of a flower you can see how much nitty-gritty work is being invested in the decoration. You can see an opposing wall with a motorcycle leaned on it being reflected in the mirror tiles. (You can click on the image to enlarge it).
It took 26 specially shaped pieces of green mirror just to create this – all being put into the wall by hand. If you look at the bigger picture of the wall you can see the green circle in the lower quarter of the screen – compare that to the upper half and think about how much effort and time was being put into decoration this temple – since this is just a tiny part of a big temple, which is again just part of a bigger temple complex.

This is also one reason why when you go to rural areas in Thailand many temples will be a lot simpler and not as fancy – because it just takes large amounts of money to built such a temple. But in Bangkok temples are doing pretty well in general and have multiple income streams – based on people making donations, services that the monks provide to the people and sales of amulets and other spiritual items that are believed to protect against evil and bring good luck.

In this picture you can see a sign that invites everybody to make a donation by buying on of these buckets filled with usefull everyday items for monks. From the profit of the sales scholarships for Buddhist students are paid, and also electricity bills for the temple.
The buckets contain things such as plastic bowls to take a batch, cottonpads, ginger drinks, candles, incense sticks, water, washing detergent, noodles, tea, toothbrushes, small towels, a monks robe, toothpaste, matches, a sponge, paracetamol and toilet paper
The value of the bucket is written to be 275 baht – which equals about 6 Euro or 10 dollar. You should at least donate 100 baht or any other amount that you find appropriate.

Donation box. In front of the donation box there is a stack of envelopes, a piece of paper and a pen. Before people make merit they write the name of the deceased person they want to make merit for on an envelope, put the money in an envelope and put it in the donation box.

Here you can see the “american” version of a Thai temple dance. It’s nice that they did it, but in Thailand the dancers who perform these dances study for many years in University before they before and are much more skilled and graceful.

However, if you have never seen a Thai temple dance this video clip will give you an idea of what it looks like.

What is the best time to visit temples?
The best time to visit temples in Bangkok is early in the morning. Because later during the day it can get really hot and some temples, like the famous Wat Po temple or the Wat Pra Kaew temple can become really crowded with tourists during the day. Many temples close at 6pm, so you don’t want to show up too late. If there’s a special holiday some temples have celebrations that can go on until the late nighttime – but as I said, this is more an exception than a rule.

Watch this video with a Thai tourguide in one of Bangkoks temples. If you can actually understand what said, congratulations

Wat Pho is probably the most famous and most visited temple in Thailand – every day it’s crowded with tourists eagerly taking pictures in front of little statues of thai eremits performing thai-yoga exercises.

The Wat Pho is also the temple that has the famous reclining buddha. The statue of the reclining buddha is huge – all gold-plated it’s 64 meters long and 15 meters high. It represents the moment when the buddha died and passed into nirvana. It’s quiet impressive to see that and Thai people have a small ritual that they perform around it. They carry a handful of coins and drop them into 108 prayer bowls. You can get a bowl for yourself (just leave a small donation in exchange).

The Wat Po temple complex is gigantic too – it spreads around 20 acres of land and there is a whole area attached (separated by the temple walls and a small road) where the monks reside.

The architecture is pretty fancy and not exactly what you imagine when you think of an Asian Buddhist temple – it’s Thai style!

The Jakarta Post just had a nice travel writing piece on a Bangkok trip by Prodita Sabarini. Included is a small part on the Grand Palace (with the emerald buddha) and the Wat Pho monastery (with the reclining buddha).