Ok, a spire, slight Gothic design, stained glass..... gotta be a church right? Wrong! Take a closer look at the altar, and there're 2 buddha images smiling back at you. But gosh! Isn't the interior so .. I don't know the terms for church architecture...was that a baldicchino?
No, Thais have not gone mad to take over a chapel and proclaim it a temple. But it was built by King Chulalongkon, in 1878, Wat Niwet Thamprawat.
Now, for a real Buddhist temple. One of the largest Buddha statue in Thailand. Sorry, can't remember its name, but when we were there, they were making offerings of saffron robes. The caretakers will then fan out the ends of the robes from the Buddha image to the worshiper, I guess, to spread the blessing. There's even a Kwan In image in this temple, and a few Chinese scripts.
Ok, now, for the real Ayutthaya, I bet most of you have already visited the ancient capital of Siam, which is about 1 hr's drive from Bangkok. The ruins are impressive, and one could only imagine the city in its former glory during the time when French and British envoys came in discovery in the 14th century. Anyway, I won't focus so much on that, but drop you a photo of 2 monks getting ordained.
3 comments:
Place looks just the same - still as lovely as the time I was there. Nice pics!
hi savante, thanks for dropping in.
wow... u've got quite a blog! hope things are well in malacca!
lovely pictures!
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