Tag Archives: temple

Busan, South Korea

United Nations Memorial Cemetery in Korea (UNMCK)

It’s safe to say that before arriving in Busan neither of us knew anything about the 1950-53 Korean War, we’d barely even heard of it. The UNMCK is a reminder of the involvement of the rest of the world in this conflict between North and South Korea following their split at the end of WW2. The United Nations forces led by the US backed the South and China and the Soviet Union fought for the North. The site is unique as the only United Nations cemetery in the world.

Each grave is marked with a small plaque and a rosebush

The cemetery is the final resting place of 2300 dead soldiers from 11 nations, including 885 from the United Kingdom. We were shocked to discover how many fell under the banner of the UN – a total of 40,895 which doesn’t include almost 140,000 South Koreans. The grounds are beautifully maintained and it’s a peaceful place to wander and reflect away from the bustle of the city.

There’s a 15 minute film outlining the history of the conflict in the inter-faith Memorial Service Hall

As well as the grave area, there are a couple of small exhibition halls and a number of different memorials around the site including a sobering recently erected ‘Wall of Remembrance’ inscribed with all of the names of the fallen.

Memorials at UNMCK (clockwise from left): The UN Forces Monument; Canadian Memorial Statue; a line of flags in front of the Wall of Remembrance

Busan museum

Just up the road from the UNMCK is the Busan Museum. It wasn’t the most gripping museum I’ve ever been to but, coupled with the video at UNMCK, it was a decent primer on Korea’s history with an understandable slant towards Busan. Situated on the peninsula’s south coast the city was the entry point for Japanese invasions as well as envoys in more peaceful times.

Busan Museum (clockwise from top): the museum building; reconstruction of a Jumak, or traditional tavern-inn; celadon pottery Arhat figures

Jagalchi market

Not another fish market I hear you cry. Well, errm yes, sorry about that but it was a 5 minute walk from our guesthouse and listed as one of Busan’s top sights so we had to go…

Outside stall complete with splashing fish in plastic bowls

We started with a stroll around the outside stalls before heading into the large, modern market building and were surprised by how much of the produce for sale was still alive and wriggling. There seemed to be fewer fish and more shellfish and other sea creatures than the markets we saw in Japan. Several times we had to take a closer look to inspect something that we didn’t recognise at all.

Jagalchi market (clockwise from top left): Colourful stalls inside the market building; dead octopuses on display; bowls of weird sea creatures; drying fish above one of the stalls

There were a lot of octopuses. A Korean delicacy is a dish containing octopus so fresh that it’s still writhing – we haven’t yet felt quite brave enough to try it! Several times we saw a small octopus making a bid for freedom down the street before the stall-keeper spotted it and threw it back into its bowl!

The streets east of the market building contained lots of shops specialising in dried fish and seaweed

Hiking around Geumjeong Fortress

For our final day in Busan we planned a long walk in the surrounding mountains, bookended by visits to a couple of the city’s temples. It’s hardly surprising that hiking is a popular pastime for Koreans, the country is covered in (small) forested mountains and Busan city snakes its way around several. It doesn’t take long then to leave the city behind and hit a trail. The weather was kind, after grey clouds and intermittent rain on the preceding days we woke to blue skies and bright sunshine.

After a subway ride and 20 minutes in the bus we were ejected at Beomeosa Temple, just inside the city but so peaceful that it felt like miles away. As we were reading the information board and lining up photos at the entrance gate we were accosted by a retired man working part-time as a volunteer guide similar to those who gave us tours at Matsumoto and Himeji castles in Japan. There wasn’t any discussion of whether we wanted a guide, he just started his spiel, but as always we found that we got more out of the visit with someone to point out interesting features and answer our many questions.

Beomeosa temple’s entrance gate is called ‘One Pillar Gate’. You’ll notice from the front that it actually has four pillars, but if you move around to the side it looks like only one. Hmm, personally I consider that cheating…

The style of the roofs and bright decoration reminded us of Chinese temples

We were surprised by the number of worshippers at Beomeosa Temple. Each hall had a chanting monk and was full of ladies praying. Our guide explained that the different Buddha statues in each hall are prayed to for different reasons, e.g. one to wish for good fortune, one if you are recently bereaved or it is the anniversary of a loved one’s death.

Beomeosa temple buildings

The trail from Beomeosa temple up to the Geumjeong Fortress North Gate (Bukmun) is a steady climb through a valley strewn with boulders, a natural formation called the ‘Sea of Rocks’. It was hard going but we were sheltered a little by the trees and eventually emerged at the fortress wall. The wall extends 18km around the mountaintop and, along with its gates and watchtowers is all that remains of the fortress.

Sea of rocks

We followed the undulating trail around the wall, stopping for panoramic views over the city and to look inside a couple of the defensive watchtowers. In one of them we found two locals taking a break from their hike with a picnic. They gave us some delicious fresh cherry tomatoes and a cup of makgeolli to try, telling us laughingly that it was ‘Korean Champagne’. It’s a kind of cloudy and fizzy rice wine (about 6-7% alcohol) and quite tasty although we declined a second cup for fear that it would slow down our pace – we still had a lot of ground to cover!

Fortress walls and city centre in background from Wonhyobong, the highest point on the eastern ridge of Mt Geumjeongsan

View to the east from the Wonhyobong viewpoint

We stopped for lunch at the East Gate before pressing on to the South Gate (Nammun). This was definitely the hardest section. Mostly uphill over a combination of steps and rocky path, it was not what we wanted just after lunch…

Geumjeong fortress gates and watchtowers (clockwise from top left): Us at the north gate; fourth watchtower; east gate; south gate

The hike from South Gate to Seokbulsa Temple was described as tough in every reference I found to it. After the allegedly ‘moderate’ path around the fortress wall I was worried about whether I would even make it! But as it turned out it wasn’t too bad, a steep, rocky downhill followed by a winding and unrelenting concrete road uphill but the distances were short compared to what we’d already covered and frankly it almost felt like the easy bit!

Julie on the trail down from south gate

The temple itself was very quiet with just one other visitor while we were there and no monks in sight. If the buildings weren’t so well maintained we might have suspected that it was abandoned. Seokbulsa translates to ‘Stone Buddha Temple’ and this explains the main reason to visit which is tucked behind the temple buildings, a courtyard surrounded on three sides by sheer rock walls carved with 10m high images of Buddhas and guardian gods.

Andrew admiring rock carvings on one of the walls

The other two sides of the temple carvings

At the back of the courtyard are a couple of small cave temples with damp walls and flickering candles. Behind these, climbing the steps to the left leads to even more carvings, this time of a seated Buddha and sixteen disciples as well as a shrine to the mountain god.

View out over the temple roof from the top of the stairs behind the carvings

It was a beautiful and impressive end to a long and tiring day.

Temples of Kyoto

Kinkakuji

The one with the glitz

Kinkakuji, or The Golden Pavilion, is an iconic image of Kyoto and it didn’t disappoint. It is hugely busy and because of the volume of tourists you are constrained to a one-way route around the grounds which means that you have to move with the herd and can’t enter any of the buildings. Even so, we’re really glad that we went, even when you’ve seen photos the real thing is still utterly breathtaking.

Tenryu-ji

The one near the bamboo grove

Another busy temple, Tenryu-ji is situated in Arashiyama in north-west Kyoto, right beside the famous Arashiyama Bamboo Grove. The temple’s Zen garden is one of the oldest in Japan and has the same form as when it was designed in the 14th century. It is lovely and we really appreciated the benches and area to sit on the terraces of the buildings around the pond although there were a few too many visiting tour groups to make it a really peaceful place to pause.

Just outside the grounds of Tenryu-ji, Arashiyama Bamboo Grove was beautiful but smaller than we’d expected

Otagi Nenbutsuji

The one with quirky statues

Hint: two of these are not permanent fixtures

This temple is also in Arashiyama, just outside the main tourist trail area. It’s not in the Lonely Planet, we found out about it on another travel blog. The temple originally dates to the 8th century although it was moved to its present location in 1922, and the grounds contain 1200 carved stone figures of Rakan (disciples of Shaka, the founder of Buddhism) which were made during the 1980s by visitors from across Japan for the reconstruction of the temple. We loved that enough time had elapsed to cover them with moss so that initially they looked very old but on closer inspection the variety of expressions and accessories (tennis racket, beer bottles, walkman!) gave them an air of modernity. It’s a lovely peaceful temple, but also feels a little like an art installation, and is definitely one of our favourites.

Kiyomizu-dera

The one with the view

It seems as if this temple is on everyone’s itinerary, it was full of school groups as well as scores of other tourists, including quite a few Japanese dressed up in kimonos for the day’s sightseeing. Even so the main hall of the temple perched on a hillside overlooking central Kyoto is an impressive sight.

If you go we’d recommend stopping at Tainai-meguri before entering the main temple (go through the gate and up the steps, it’s to the left before you get to the ticket booth). It’s an unusual sub temple which you enter through a curtain into a pitch black corridor, following a handrail of large wooden prayer beads leads you to the centre of the temple and symbolises rebirth. Even with a group of giggling schoolgirls following us and stepping on the backs of our shoes it was a mystical experience.

Chion-in

The one with grandeur

Clockwise from top left: Andrew in front of the temple gate, the main hall under wraps, a large Buddha head in a sub-temple in the cemetery, the ‘big bell’

From the beginning you know that this is going to be an impressive temple. It has the largest temple gate in Japan, a self proclaimed ‘big bell’, and when the main hall is uncovered and reopens (scheduled for sometime in 2019) it looks as if it will be an imposing structure. But, for all that, there’s nothing brash about this temple, it has a quiet dignity and we liked how it seemed to be a working temple, minding its own business and almost ignoring the few tourists who pass through.

Its seven ‘treasures’ are explained in a display case behind the temple hall and the corridors linking the three main structures are fitted with nightingale floors, so called because they ‘sing’ as you walk on them. It’s thought that they were used as a kind of security measure so that intruders couldn’t sneak in.

Shoren-in

The one that looks like a country retreat

I still can’t quite get my head around this one being a temple. There is a line of massive camphor trees along the front shielding it from the street and the buildings are an interconnected collection of rooms with beautifully painted screen doors and views out into a peaceful garden. You really have to look for the temple elements – the Buddha images are modestly sized, there’s no incense and even the temple bell is tucked away in a corner of the garden.

Fushimi Inari

The one with lots of red torii gates

OK, strictly speaking this is a shrine not a temple, but you know what I mean… It’s located about a 30 minute bike ride south-east of Kyoto centre and extends all the way up the side of Mt Inari. It’s quite a long and sweaty hike to the top along a path almost entirely covered with thousands of bright orange-red torii gates with various small shrines along the way dedicated to the gods of rice and sake. We found the view through the gates to be really photogenic and it was much easier to find empty stretches the higher up the mountain we climbed.

Ginkakuji

The one with the amazing Zen garden (and not a glimmer of silver)

Ginkakuji means silver temple but, unlike at Kinkakuji, they never quite got around to applying the bling here. We arrived just after opening time to find the team of gardeners beginning a demolition job on the intricate raked sand Zen garden. Our next hour or so was spent sitting at the side and watching as with hosepipe, string line, special rake and a hefty boulder they reconstructed it. Even without the special experience of seeing how the Zen garden is engineered, the rest of the grounds are also beautifully kept (and busy) with mossy hillsides and glimpses into the temple buildings.

Honen-in

The one with the art

The Path of Philosophy

The Path of Philosophy is a canalside footpath which leads south from Ginkakuji. The next temple along it is Honen-in which the Lonely Planet highly recommended but which was nevertheless very quiet. There is a small garden surrounding the temple buildings as well as several pieces of art installed discreetly in the grounds. There’s also a dedicated exhibition room which hosts small temporary exhibitions. We enjoyed going in and speaking to the mother and daughter artists and an Australian artist who was also viewing, we even got a free cup of tea.

Honen-in (clockwise from top left): art exhibition hall, stupa in the grounds, raked sand, art work in a corner of the garden

Nanzenji

The one with the gate that you can go inside

Nanzenji also has an impressively large gate and it’s possible to enter this one. I found the ¥500 (£3) entry fee a little steep for the 20 minutes required to climb the steps and walk around but the view over the city is nice and the temple on the second floor is beautifully painted although unfortunately we could only peek through the windows and photos are not allowed. Afterwards we wandered through the grounds, past the brick built aqueduct and through a very quiet temple called Saisho-in to a shrine-temple in the forest built in front of a sacred waterfall.

Kurama-dera

The one on a forested hillside

The main reason we visited the small town of Kurama, 30 minutes north of Kyoto on the Eizan rail line was to visit the outdoor onsen, but an hour or so’s walk up the hillside through the various temple buildings and a picnic lunch with a view over the surrounding mountains turned it into a pleasant full day trip. The temple was pretty, but we highly recommend a soak in the hot spring waters as a way to relax your muscles after the hike up and back down the hill.

Buddhist pilgrimage in Koyasan, Japan

4 Replies

Buddhism and Shintoism

First, a quick primer about religion in Japan. Most Japanese practice both Shintoism and Buddhism. Shintoism is the native religion and celebrates life, the many shrines are dedicated to various gods of the natural world, for example, the god of rain, or the god of the mountain. When babies are born they are celebrated at the Shinto shrine, and its also where farmers make offerings and prayers for a good crop or favourable growing weather. Buddhism, which arrived via China and Korea, is practiced alongside, and has many rituals relating to death so funerals are conducted at the Buddhist temple. Therefore it is said that Japanese are born under Shintoism and die under Buddhism. However, the two religions are so entwined that it’s sometimes difficult to know where one ends and the other begins, Shinto symbols such as torii gates or shrines are often found at Buddhist temples and vice versa.

A bright red Shinto torii gate with guardian dogs in the middle of the Buddhist Danjo Garan Temple Complex

Koyasan is a sacred place for Buddhism in Japan and the home of the Shingon school of Esoteric Buddhism. Its founder, Kobo Daishi, established a religious community here in 816 AD and is buried here, or rather his followers believe that he has entered a state of meditation in his tomb to await the arrival of the future Buddha.

The last stage of the journey to Koyasan is in a cable car

Staying in a temple, or not, in Koyasan

Many visitors stay in one of the 50-60 temples around the town and we considered doing that, but it’s fairly expensive (prices start at £60 per person per night half board) and so we chose the budget alternative – a capsule guesthouse! Koyasan Guesthouse Kokuu is small and perfectly formed, it’s run by husband and wife team Ryochi and Yuri, and when we arrived Ryochi sat down with us and a map for about 10 minutes managing to answer all of our many questions without us having to actually ask them! Our capsule bedrooms were surprisingly spacious and very comfortable, and Yuri cooks up a mean curry which we enjoyed for our dinner with a flask of hot sake.

Koyasan Guesthouse Kokuu: Inside a capsule, guesthouse corridor, chicken curry and hot sake for dinner

Some of the things we wanted to experience which are typically included as part of the temple-stay experience were the opportunity to witness the monks’ chanting in the morning ceremony, the chance to learn more about the religion and monks’ lives, and trying the Buddhist vegetarian cuisine called Shojin Ryori. Ryochi managed to construct an itinerary for us that covered all of those bases as well as seeing the main sights. First up was lunch at Sanbo where we tried a couple of the Shojin Ryori set menus. It was a diverse and interesting feast with lots of different kinds of tofu, delicious mountain vegetables, and lots of sesame seeds. Yum.

Shojin Ryori meal, before and after!

Kongobu-ji Temple

Next we set off to visit Kongobu-ji Temple, the administrative headquarters of Koyasan Shingon Buddhism. Set around the entrance courtyard are the beautiful main hall with its thatched roof (complete with fire buckets on top), a smaller thatched building previously used to store documents and a belfry with an unusual outward curving wall described on the information board as a ‘skirt’.

Kongobu-ji Temple (clockwise from top): Main temple building (note the large wooden buckets on the roof ridge), a cup of green tea and a rice cracker are included in the admission fee, you need to change from your outdoor shoes into slippers to enter the temple, beautiful carvings on the gable

One reason that we visited was that this temple has the largest Zen rock garden in Japan. We found the rock garden a little disappointing as it wasn’t possible to see all of it and there wasn’t room to sit and contemplate around its edge. The leaflet explained that it represented two dragons flying through the clouds, but some idea of the meaning behind the forms would have been good too.

Banryutei rock garden

However, the stunning painted screen doors dating from the 16th century which are in the rest of the temple more than made up for the slight disappointment of the rock garden. Amongst other things, they show scenes from Kobo Daishi’s life as well as flowers and birds of the four seasons.

Screen doors painted with cranes

Okunoin Cemetery

I didn’t quite know what to expect when we read all the superlatives applied to Okunoin Cemetery, but it really is as atmospheric as all the reviews suggest. I think I would even say that it’s one of my favourite places of the trip so far, certainly from a photography point of view.

Sunbeam shining through the cedar trees onto Okunoin cemetery

The cemetery itself is vast with over 200,000 graves. Our introduction to it was on a night tour guided by a Buddhist monk from Ekoin temple called Nobu (organised through Ryochi at the guesthouse) and it was a little strange to be seeing it for the first time in the dark. Nobu was an excellent guide, he gave us a lot of background information about the cemetery and about Buddhism in Japan, interspersed with scary legends and cries of ‘careful, steps!’

Stone lanterns light the path through Okunoin cemetery at nighttime

Two of the most obvious and useful things that he explained were the gorinto shape of most of the gravestones and the significance of the jizo statues. The gorinto is a column of five shapes representing (from bottom to top) earth, water, fire, wind, and space or void. Together with consciousness these elements form the whole universe.

Gravestones – mostly gorintos but we saw many different ones including a space rocket and a Möbius strip!

The small statues with bibs are jizo, they sit between the living and dead worlds, and their purpose is to guide spirits from life to death. They are often found at the site of deaths (e.g. by a roadside or forest trail). The bib should be red, it signifies the fire required to purify the spirit before crossing to death.

Jizo statues

The mausoleum of Kobo Daishi is the most sacred place in the cemetery. Nobu took us behind the lantern hall to stand in front of the mausoleum. Here he told us the story of Kobo Daishi’s eternal meditation and chanted the Heart Sutra which was a beautiful end to the tour.

The lantern hall was also where we were able to see the morning chanting. Ryochi had told us that it was OK to leave quietly part way through but we ended up sitting and listening to the whole of the one hour ceremony with four monks chanting and a head monk making ritualistic sounds with a drum and gong, it was a mesmerising and otherworldly experience. After the ceremony finished at 7am we wandered the almost empty cemetery.

The path through the cemetery is lined with huge Japanese cedar trees. Their average age is 200-600 years, but some are as old as 1000 years.

As you might expect with a cemetery, there are a few superstitious stories connected with Okunoin. There is a well in the centre where it’s said if you can’t see your reflection in the water you’ll die within three years (I’m pleased to report that we were both able to see our reflections), a gravestone which if you put your ear against it you can hear the cries in hell (fortunately that one didn’t work…) and a stone which pilgrims try to lift onto a shelf – the heavier the stone the more sins you have (we couldn’t try it as the building containing it was boarded up).

Andrew looking for his reflection and checking if he could hear the cries in hell

Many companies also have plots, we spotted a familiar logo amongst them

Danjo Garan Complex

The Danjo Garan complex is the site of the first monastic constructions here in the early 9th century although no original buildings remain (building your temples from wood and thatch leads to a high probability of destruction by fire). Along with Okunoin it is one of the most important places in Koyasan. There’s no entry fee to just wander around (you only need to pay to enter the buildings which are open to the public) and it was a good place to see the traditional wooden architecture and thatched roofs up close.

Kobo Daishi planned for the Konpon Daito (Great Pagoda) to be the centre of his monastic complex

Nyoninmichi

Until the late 19th century women were not allowed to enter the town area of Koyasan and so female pilgrims followed a trail circumnavigating the town with dedicated women’s temples on each of the access roads. Nowadays the trail is set up for hikers and it’s a nice way to get a different perspective on the town as well as some spectacular views if you’re lucky enough to get clear weather as we were. The total length of the path is 15.5km but it’s possible to break it down into smaller sections.

Julie in front of the 25m high Daimon (Great Gate) at the western edge of the town

On our first afternoon we climbed from the Daimon (Great Gate) up between torii gates to the summit of Mt Betendake. It was quite steep and in places the steps were very uneven but we got spectacular views across to the Inland Sea (about 20km away we think) and it was nice to be up above and out of the bustle of the town for a while.

The view to the coast – you can see the sea glistening on the right of the picture behind the trees

The following day we decided to tackle the southern portion of the women’s pilgrimage route about 5km, or just over 3 miles, from the guesthouse to the opposite end of town, ending by the Daimon. Again, we met very few other walkers so most of the time it was just us and the rustling of skinks (small lizards) in the dry leaves with occasional glimpses across the valleys and mountains.

Steps up through the trees, toriis line the path up to Mt Betendake, a small skink with a very bright tail

Us on the trail

Koyasan was an excellent stop on our itinerary. I’m sure that a stay in one of the temples would be very rewarding but we didn’t feel that we’d missed out on anything by staying in cheaper accommodation, we just wish that we’d booked two nights instead of one!

Bangkok, Thailand (part 2)

The Grand Palace & Wat Phra Kaew

Next door to the stunning Wat Pho we saw on our first visit to Bangkok, the Grand Palace was the residence of the Kings for 150 years after it was built in 1782, and is still used for royal and official ceremonies throughout the year. Within the grounds is Wat Phra Kaew, and the combined audio guide tour took us through this compact, temple-filled splendour first..

Wat Phra Kaew. Gold, gold, everywhere!

Each successive King has left their mark on this Royal Wat – some opting for maintenance, preservation and restraint, while others went all out for glory, such as King Rama IV covering the huge Phra Si Rattana Chedi with gold tiles imported from Italy, or building a model of Angkor Wat (as northern Cambodia used to be part of Siam, the former name for Thailand – hence the use of ‘Siam’ in the name of many Thai restaurants in the UK)

Sights in Wat Phra Kaew (clockwise from top right): Model of Angkor Wat; Statues and mirrored tiles; Julie and I imitating the mythological creatures; Golden statues; Ramakian Mural Cloisters with golden highlights

The undisputed highlight of Wat Phra Kaew (and that’s saying something!) is the Emerald Buddha. Thought to have originated in India, it was hidden for 300 years and only rediscovered in Chiang Rai after the chedi it was hiding in was struck by lightning. The figure was moved briefly to Chiang Mai, then Sukhothai and now sits in contemplation and for adoration atop a golden throne.

The Emerald Buddha. Photos are not permitted from inside the temple, but if you have enough zoom they helpfully leave the front doors open..

In a very elaborate ceremony timed with the seasons, the King climbs a staircase behind the throne, and changes the Emerald Buddha’s outfit.

The Emerald Buddha’s costumes (photo credit: Peggy’s Photos)

After Wat Phra Kaew, the expansive Grand Palace is a welcome contrast to the claustrophobic golden glitziness. Although the splendid main palace building is closed to all but invited visitors, there are two open galleries on the ground floor either side of the central staircase. The left gallery houses a collection of ancient fighting weapons – spears, maces, axes and swords, and the right – cannon, muskets, pistols, and rifles, including several made in England.

Us in front of the Royal Palace in Bangkok, Thailand

The Royal Palace guards. I’m reluctant to call this the short straw, as their eyes got plenty of exercise checking out the female visitors

There was so much to see that we used most of our 2 hour audio guide allowance in the wat, and had to rush the end of the Grand Palace – on reflection the balance was about right, and although we feared an extra charge for the late return of the equipment, we weren’t fined for being 15 minutes over.

Khao San Road (KSR)

Khao San Road, commonly abbreviated to KSR, is the most well-known and most tourist-orientated street in Bangkok. The roadside is overflowing with souvenir stands, bars, cafes, restaurants, massage parlours and a couple of small shopping centres, and the higher storeys are mostly taken by hostels and small B&Bs.

Khao San Road (KSR), a good place to stop for a beer, a (weak) cocktail in a bucket, and/or a massage!

Chinatown Walk

One of the first things we try to do in a new place is have a walk about to get our bearings, and we often like to achieve this with a walking tour as it also shows us places we may not otherwise have found on our own.

The east gate entrance to Chinatown, and a very brave traffic policeman

The Chinatown area of Bangkok is a sprawled mass of backstreets and alleyways full of retail shops and wholesale merchants counters. As we first saw in Beijing, Hong Kong and also old Hanoi, each street specialises in a given item – shoes street, clothes street, ingredients street, toy street, etc. as most of the shops were devoid of customers, and with pretty much the same array of goods available in each of their neighbours, we pondered how they could all stay in business.

The main road artery through the middle of Bangkok’s Chinatown

This was one of the hardest walking maps we’ve ever tried to follow – we’re used to heading up small streets then backtracking but there were 3 occasions that we found ourselves a street away from where we should have been! Still, it was good fun getting lost in the narrow busyness.

Chinatown’s narrow backstreets (clockwise from top right): the very busy ingredients street; picked vegetables; a bored shopkeeper; mid-transaction; dried fruits; and prayers at Mangkon Kamalawat, Chinatown’s largest and liveliest temple

Jim Thompson House

Reading the reviews of our hotel in Bangkok, a few had mentioned that it was close to the Jim Thompson House, so we did a little bit of research and as our overnight train left late in the evening, we decided to see what it was all about.

To briefly summarise Jim Thompson’s story, he is credited with almost singlehandedly reviving the Thailand silk trade in the 1950’s and 60’s. Then, on a trip to Malaysia in 1967 he reportedly went for a stroll and never returned. Almost 6 months after his disappearance, his elder sister was murdered in her home in the US. To this day his body or whereabouts remains a mystery.

Jim Thompson House Museum

The house is unusual for Thai residences because it’s actually made of 6 native Thai houses joined together. Mr Thompson had them moved from different areas of Thailand and rebuilt across the river from the families and factories that manufactured his beloved silk, using the extra space to store the collection of Asian art gathered on his travels.

(Clockwise from top right): The main lounge or seating area; figurine detail close-up; art collection under the main house, including a giant wood-printing block; and the reception hall containing very rare wooden statues

He was a man of great taste, and his collection is a delight to walk around. I particularly liked that when rebuilding the houses he had some of the walls reversed so he could appreciate the beautiful fretwork from the inside.

Sukhothai UNESCO World Heritage Site, Thailand

4 Replies

Our first stop on our trip south from Chiang Mai was at Sukhothai. Near to this small modern town are ruins of ancient Thailand:

The Historic Town of Sukhothai and Associated Historic Towns is a UNESCO World Heritage site which consists of Sukhothai historical park, Kamphaeng Phet historical park and Si Satchanalai historical park. These historical parks preserve the remains of the three main cities of the Sukhothai Kingdom which had flourished during the 13th and 14th century CE. The Sukhothai Kingdom is viewed as having been the first of the Thai kingdoms.

Sukhothai

Sukhothai Historical Park is divided into five zones (each with a separate entrance fee). We visited the central area which contains the heart of the old city and the remains of several wats interspersed with pools and surrounded by trees. The wooded park between the wats was a pleasant place to cycle through and even though the bikes that we rented were rather rickety it was completely flat, the paths were in good condition and nothing was very far away.

The centrepiece is Wat Mahathat, surrounded by brick walls and a moat it contains a staggering 198 chedis (conical or bell-shaped structures often containing Buddhist relics) as well as the remains of a viharn, or prayer hall, and several Buddha statues.

Large Buddha statue reflected in the moat at Wat Mahathat

Buddhas of Wat Mahathat: Andrew imitating the 12m high standing Buddha, this seated Buddha has gold painted fingernails, walking Buddhas surround the base of the central chedi group

Although somewhat less impressive, many aspects of the site reminded us of the ruins at Angkor in Cambodia and a Khmer influence is obvious in some of the temple domes. Here though there are not nearly as many tourists so we rarely had to wait very long to get a photo with no one else in it, or to get a closer look at something that interested us.

Khmer style temple roofs at Wat Sri Sawai

The shape of the temple roof is obvious from the remains of the pillars at Wat Sra Sri

The chedis are of various shapes including Khmer (Cambodian) and Sinhalese (Sri Lankan) influence, but the lotus bud shape is known as typically Sukhothai in style.

Chedis of different styles (clockwise from top left): the central chedi grouping at Wat Mahathat has a lotus bud chedi surrounded by Khmer style ones, some chedis have niches which would have contained images of Buddha, a typical lotus bud shaped chedi at Wat Traphang Ngoen, us with the elephant chedi at Wat Sorasak

King Ramkhaeng the Great is the best known of the kings who ruled from Sukhothai and he is commemorated here with a monument and several bas reliefs showing key moments of his rule, most notably the carving of the earliest known example of the Thai alphabet.

Monument of King Ramkhaeng the Great in Sukhothai Historical Park

Si Satchanalai

The next day, on the recommendation of our guesthouse landlady, we decided to head off to another of the ruined cities in the same UNESCO listing, Si Satchanalai, about 70km (45miles) north of New Sukhothai. We rented a motorbike and set off through the countryside passing fields full of marigolds and what we think was tobacco (we saw racks of the leaves drying as well as fields full of the plants).

In the morning we explored the main area of ruins and enjoyed them even more than the ruins at Sukhothai. There were even fewer tourists and no traffic noise so that at times we were completely alone in a ruined wat with just the sound of bird song which made it seem as if we were discovering the ancient city before anyone else. The temples were also very varied and, perhaps because of the lower numbers of tourists, more accessible, it’s possible to climb some of the chedis here and have a look inside!

The central temple, Wat Chedi Ched Thaeo, is a profusion of chedis in different styles

Chedis supported by elephants were a common motif in the Sukhothai period and there’s one at Si Satchanalai too. The elephant’s strength signifies the Buddhist religion being held up for 500 years. This one is much bigger than the one we saw at the Sukhothai Historical Park and has not been restored so you can see the elephants in various states of decay which meant we could try to work out how they were put together. Sadly none of the trunks remain which gives some of the statues quite a menacing look.

Chedi at Wat Chang Lom, look closely around the base to see the remains of the large elephant statues

Wat Nang Phaya had a large chedi that we climbed up to see the small internal chamber as well as a wall of well preserved plaster carvings. These red flowers were dropping from trees all around the site

After lunch in one of the local restaurants outside the park’s gate, we motored 5km down the riverside to Wat Phra Si Rattana Mahathat Chaliang. The entrance gate here has Bayon style carvings of faces and the main shrine itself is also reminiscent of other Khmer architecture which we saw at Angkor. Unlike the other ruins this shrine is still an active place of worship and a working temple is found just outside the ancient walls.

Us with the main shrine of Wat Phra Si Rattana Mahathat Chaliang

The large Mon style chedi, Phra That Mutao, with the main shrine in the background, Bayon style carvings above the entrance gate, this old man was busking inside the ruins

After the long ride back to New Sukhothai we found a street restaurant serving the local specialty, Sukhothai-style noodles with sliced pork, crackling, peanuts, greens and a side bowl of broth. Yum.

two year trip

Andrew and Julie's Travelling Adventures