Amulet Market and Wat Phro

Just across the road from the Grand Palace the street is lined with stalls and shops specialising in religious amulets and statues to bring you good luck in whatever area of your life you are lacking. We see monks, dressed in their customary yellow robes, scrutinising the tiny models of buddha under magnifying glasses and a whole mixture of goods on sale from tiny metal frames in which to place your sacred photos of King Bhumibol or your family to false teeth, from giant plaster cast statues of monks in cross legged positions

to old fashioned audio tapes and second hand shoes.

We make our way up to Wat Phro, which is incidentally the next wat along. There sure are a lot of wats here, wat wat! This is the location of the largest reclining buddha statue, some 46m long. It's almost bursting out of it's temple walls,

kind of like Alice in Alice in Wonderland when she eats one of the sweets which makes her grow uncontrollably.

jasmine and rose garlands in front of the buddha

A buddha in reclining pose represents the last stage of enlightenment, nirvana. He really is a sight when you first walk through the temple's doors and look up into his golden armpit!

one of the many buddhas on show in Wat Phro

The wat is also the site of the most buddha statues altogether and they do seem to go on for miles, filling the courtyard corridors. I partake in a little Buddhist ritual of placing a coin in every steel monk's bowl lined up along the edge of the temple interior, which creates a continuous bell like pinging noise and fills the hall. Not sure what the significance is but I'm pretty sure I have to make sure I place a coin in each of the hundred or so bowls. Another charming ritual is to pay for a swatch of gold leaf which you then attach to a small buddha, doing your bit to turn him gold!