Our last full day in Asia we spent touring Bangkok and doing a bit of relaxing. The morning started with a scrumptious Scottish breakfast. Scottish breakfast in Thailand may seem strange to some, but it seemed fitting because the hotel's charming owner, Kevin, was Scottish, and the small hotel was a quirky and fun blend of Scottish and Thai flavors.
We then cabbed it to Wat Traimit in the Samphanthawong district of Chinatown. Wat Traimit itself was simple in its beauty, a towering four-storey temple built in the typical style we had seen in the wats in Chiang Mai. However, the real attraction was what resided inside Wat Traimit... Phra Phuttha Maha Suwan Patimakon!!! Otherwise known by it's less tongue-twisting name, "The Golden Buddha", it is the world's largest solid gold statue. Landon told me what he had read about the shiny deity's unusual journey to his revered status on the lofty top floor of the temple, and it was so interesting I have copied part of it below:
In the early 1930s, reconstruction works in the banks of the Chao Phraya river near Chinatown required the destruction of an old abandoned temple that housed a stucco-painted statue of Buddha. Despite the fact that the statue was not so attractive, its destruction was not an option. Thus it was decided to move it to Wat Traimit, a pagoda of minor relevance (like hundreds of other Buddhist temples that exist in Bangkok), keeping the statue in Chinatown. The temple didn't have a building big enough to house the statue, so it was kept for 20 years under a simple tin roof. In 1955 a new building was built and the monks decided to install the statue inside it. A crane was supposed to move the statue carefully, but a cable broke and the statue fell in the mud, an event that was seen as a bad omen by the workers, who ran away from the place, leaving the statue on the soil. It was the rainy season and, as for confirming the bad omen, a terrible storm came and it lasted the whole night, flooding the whole city. At the dawn of the next day, the abbot of the temple came to evaluate the damage and started removing the mud. He observed that the wet plaster was cracked and under it was a statue made of solid gold. It is thought that the statue came from Ayutthaya and it was disguised under plaster to hide it from the Burmese, who were besieging the city. After being moved to Bangkok, its true composition was forgotten for almost 200 years.
Fascinating, yes? I loved that story. It is just an example of the old cliche that appearances can be deceiving. Despite the impressiveness of the gold behemoth, the top floor of the temple had amazing views of Bangkok's surrounding Chinatown. Our next stop was outside the pristine white walls that surrounded the sprawling complex of the Grand Palace and its temple, Wat Phra Kaew, regarded as the most sacred temple in Thailand. As palaces go, this one was most unique due to its rich colors and characteristic adornments. My favorite part of the massive temple complex was the intricate array of colored-mirror mosaics that covered the facade of every building. Standing in front of the walls, I could see many tiny reflections of myself in blues, greens and reds that blended to make larger reflections if I stepped back. It reminded me of the lovely collections of antique glass that my Grandma Earlene loved so much. Touching the smooth surfaces of the mirrors brought me back to childhood days in her house in which she'd let me take them off the shelves to carefully hold them. Grandma is on my mind and all around me here. She would have loved to see all the intricate and fancy temples that are enormous versions of the art and glass pieces she loved to collect. As I have come to learn, these temples are not only revered for their inherent beauty, but for the treasures they hold inside, be it statues of precious metals or a king's ashes. In this case it was yet another the former, this time 'The Emerald Buddha', a small green relation of the golden counterpart across town. His story of how he came to his honored position on the top of a tower of gold and jewels is eerily similar to the circumstances surrounding that of the Golden Buddha. I won't repeat the similar story of it being discovered by chance after it was covered in stucco, but there are some fun legends that involved lightning, elephants and war-loving kings. The Emerald Buddha, which in fact is actually solid jade...a small detail that was discovered after its naming and never rectified, us quite a fashionable deity because his golden attire is changed by the Thai king himself at the change of every season. He was quite in the mode in his winter attire when I laid eyes on him along with the throngs of worshippers that repeatedly bowed on their knees at his altar. Honestly my favorite part of the temple were the beautiful paint and gilded murals on the walls of the covered walkways on the courtyard's perimeter. They depicted scenes from the Ramakian, the Thai national epic, and I tried to make sense of the monsters, wars and beautiful countryside the paintings depicted.
Heat and exhaustion drove us to lunch in an air-conditioned restaurant followed by pedicures and neck and shoulder massages at a massage parlor by our hotel. After six straight weeks in my Chaco sandals tromping around Asia, my feet were in desperate need of pampering. After quick showers we beat the crawling Bangkok traffic by taking the metro to the home of Steve and Carmen, long-time friends of Cristine's parents who have lived in Bangkok for the past ten years. Steve is a pediatrician turned global health advocate who works for UNICEF in Bangkok, a Carmen is an ardent defender against child exploitation in Thailand through her work with ECPCA. Their daughter, Kelsey, is a 25-year-old young woman who recently returned to her parents home in Thailand after working for an NGO for the past two years. They all had incredie stories from their beginnings in international work to their current plans and activities. I picked Steve's brain as much as I could about his advice regarding how to best plan my residency training and career to be able to work in healthcare and human welfare in a more global way. After a month in India and several week-long mission trips at other times in my life, I've realized that making a significant, perpefuatung impact is done at a much earlier step than just prescribing medications or performing a surgery. There's so much that can be changed in terms of human health and human rights through education and building up social infrastructure where one doesn't exist. Steve had great ideas for both Landon and I, as a future physician and as an engineer, to make the changes we want to see in the works. It was really touching to hear Carmen explain the intricacies of her job and the barriers she faces in working against the sexual exploitation of Thai children with the police corruption that is everpresent in developing countries. The ESCPA is a truly amazing organization that was the forerunner in specifically defining the rights of children and their status as individuals whilst separate from their parents who deserve free access to the justice system without having the danger of being marginalized or misrepresented. She works with many international organizations, and Kelsey proudly joked that hers was the only mother that had Interpol on speed dial. The funnier thing was that it was completely true. We spent many hours yesterday evening sharing incredible home-cooked Thai food, travel stories and glasses of red wine. Their hospitality was genuine and warm, and it was with true regret that we bade them goodnight and goodbye since we were headed home the next day. I confessed to Carmen that my six weeks in Asia had flown by, and that I wished I could stay longer. I don't think I'll ever feel like my traveling is completed, no matter how many places I go. I guess that's the point of traveling though, to continually seek out the unknown, and that which is unknown within the known.
We then cabbed it to Wat Traimit in the Samphanthawong district of Chinatown. Wat Traimit itself was simple in its beauty, a towering four-storey temple built in the typical style we had seen in the wats in Chiang Mai. However, the real attraction was what resided inside Wat Traimit... Phra Phuttha Maha Suwan Patimakon!!! Otherwise known by it's less tongue-twisting name, "The Golden Buddha", it is the world's largest solid gold statue. Landon told me what he had read about the shiny deity's unusual journey to his revered status on the lofty top floor of the temple, and it was so interesting I have copied part of it below:
In the early 1930s, reconstruction works in the banks of the Chao Phraya river near Chinatown required the destruction of an old abandoned temple that housed a stucco-painted statue of Buddha. Despite the fact that the statue was not so attractive, its destruction was not an option. Thus it was decided to move it to Wat Traimit, a pagoda of minor relevance (like hundreds of other Buddhist temples that exist in Bangkok), keeping the statue in Chinatown. The temple didn't have a building big enough to house the statue, so it was kept for 20 years under a simple tin roof. In 1955 a new building was built and the monks decided to install the statue inside it. A crane was supposed to move the statue carefully, but a cable broke and the statue fell in the mud, an event that was seen as a bad omen by the workers, who ran away from the place, leaving the statue on the soil. It was the rainy season and, as for confirming the bad omen, a terrible storm came and it lasted the whole night, flooding the whole city. At the dawn of the next day, the abbot of the temple came to evaluate the damage and started removing the mud. He observed that the wet plaster was cracked and under it was a statue made of solid gold. It is thought that the statue came from Ayutthaya and it was disguised under plaster to hide it from the Burmese, who were besieging the city. After being moved to Bangkok, its true composition was forgotten for almost 200 years.
Fascinating, yes? I loved that story. It is just an example of the old cliche that appearances can be deceiving. Despite the impressiveness of the gold behemoth, the top floor of the temple had amazing views of Bangkok's surrounding Chinatown. Our next stop was outside the pristine white walls that surrounded the sprawling complex of the Grand Palace and its temple, Wat Phra Kaew, regarded as the most sacred temple in Thailand. As palaces go, this one was most unique due to its rich colors and characteristic adornments. My favorite part of the massive temple complex was the intricate array of colored-mirror mosaics that covered the facade of every building. Standing in front of the walls, I could see many tiny reflections of myself in blues, greens and reds that blended to make larger reflections if I stepped back. It reminded me of the lovely collections of antique glass that my Grandma Earlene loved so much. Touching the smooth surfaces of the mirrors brought me back to childhood days in her house in which she'd let me take them off the shelves to carefully hold them. Grandma is on my mind and all around me here. She would have loved to see all the intricate and fancy temples that are enormous versions of the art and glass pieces she loved to collect. As I have come to learn, these temples are not only revered for their inherent beauty, but for the treasures they hold inside, be it statues of precious metals or a king's ashes. In this case it was yet another the former, this time 'The Emerald Buddha', a small green relation of the golden counterpart across town. His story of how he came to his honored position on the top of a tower of gold and jewels is eerily similar to the circumstances surrounding that of the Golden Buddha. I won't repeat the similar story of it being discovered by chance after it was covered in stucco, but there are some fun legends that involved lightning, elephants and war-loving kings. The Emerald Buddha, which in fact is actually solid jade...a small detail that was discovered after its naming and never rectified, us quite a fashionable deity because his golden attire is changed by the Thai king himself at the change of every season. He was quite in the mode in his winter attire when I laid eyes on him along with the throngs of worshippers that repeatedly bowed on their knees at his altar. Honestly my favorite part of the temple were the beautiful paint and gilded murals on the walls of the covered walkways on the courtyard's perimeter. They depicted scenes from the Ramakian, the Thai national epic, and I tried to make sense of the monsters, wars and beautiful countryside the paintings depicted.
Heat and exhaustion drove us to lunch in an air-conditioned restaurant followed by pedicures and neck and shoulder massages at a massage parlor by our hotel. After six straight weeks in my Chaco sandals tromping around Asia, my feet were in desperate need of pampering. After quick showers we beat the crawling Bangkok traffic by taking the metro to the home of Steve and Carmen, long-time friends of Cristine's parents who have lived in Bangkok for the past ten years. Steve is a pediatrician turned global health advocate who works for UNICEF in Bangkok, a Carmen is an ardent defender against child exploitation in Thailand through her work with ECPCA. Their daughter, Kelsey, is a 25-year-old young woman who recently returned to her parents home in Thailand after working for an NGO for the past two years. They all had incredie stories from their beginnings in international work to their current plans and activities. I picked Steve's brain as much as I could about his advice regarding how to best plan my residency training and career to be able to work in healthcare and human welfare in a more global way. After a month in India and several week-long mission trips at other times in my life, I've realized that making a significant, perpefuatung impact is done at a much earlier step than just prescribing medications or performing a surgery. There's so much that can be changed in terms of human health and human rights through education and building up social infrastructure where one doesn't exist. Steve had great ideas for both Landon and I, as a future physician and as an engineer, to make the changes we want to see in the works. It was really touching to hear Carmen explain the intricacies of her job and the barriers she faces in working against the sexual exploitation of Thai children with the police corruption that is everpresent in developing countries. The ESCPA is a truly amazing organization that was the forerunner in specifically defining the rights of children and their status as individuals whilst separate from their parents who deserve free access to the justice system without having the danger of being marginalized or misrepresented. She works with many international organizations, and Kelsey proudly joked that hers was the only mother that had Interpol on speed dial. The funnier thing was that it was completely true. We spent many hours yesterday evening sharing incredible home-cooked Thai food, travel stories and glasses of red wine. Their hospitality was genuine and warm, and it was with true regret that we bade them goodnight and goodbye since we were headed home the next day. I confessed to Carmen that my six weeks in Asia had flown by, and that I wished I could stay longer. I don't think I'll ever feel like my traveling is completed, no matter how many places I go. I guess that's the point of traveling though, to continually seek out the unknown, and that which is unknown within the known.
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