Bangkok's Temples

Thailand is known to be a buddhistic country where people still practice a strong religion while also living in a very modern and trendy world.

It's interesting to see the combination of modern, gigantic shopping malls where you can buy everything from Giorgio Armani to Louis Vuitton but at the same time you have hundreds of temples all over Bangkok where monks in orange robes meditate, pray, perform rituals and other social functions.

Bangkok truly is a "melting pot" in every sense, and it's grounded in a very typical Thai characteristic: being able to assimilate different cultures, no matter how much they might differ, and integrate them into "Thainess".

Currently there are around 400 temples in Bangkok, and the number of mosques is also growing, specially around the area of Bangkapi.

Generally it's free to enter a temple, only the main tourist attraction temples charge an admission fee for foreigners - if you have ever witnessed how many tourists flood the Wat Pho temple on any given day you are not surprised though about the fact that managing such an influx of people actually needs to be funded somehow.

The Wat Pho is in fact the most famous temple in Bangkok. Here the gigantic "Reclining Buddha" can be found - it measures 64 metres in length and 15 in height and as far as I know there isn't even one photograph that actually fit the whole Buddha inside because of the way the temple is designed.

Around the Reclining Buddha there are 108 small bowls where people can drop coins inside for good luck.

Buddhist monks from all over the world - including Tibet, Japan, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, India, Burma and other nations come here to pray respect to the Buddha.

The whole Wat Po temple complex overs around 20 acres of land, and in fact while the reclining Buddha is almost always crowded if you just walk around a bit you might find yourself to be the only person around (specially if you come early in the morning).

Bangkoks temples are still great to explore and you will make many interesting encounters here. Many of the monks have very interesting life stories.

Visit my website on Bangkok's temples for more information.