Half a Day in Bangkok: The Grand Palace

On my second weekend in Bangkok, it was finally time to move from a hotel into my long-term accommodation. Fortunately, I secured a place very close to my office and just across the road from the hotel, so I did not have to lug my luggage too far in the sweltering heat. I found my apartment nice and tidy with two sets of air conditioners, a small kitchen with a fridge, and a spacious living room. Its only downside is that it is on the fourth floor of a house without air-conditioned staircases.

The windows of my living room face south-westwards, forming a contiguous row from corner to corner and welcoming plenty sunlight in the afternoon hours. The view is not particularly remarkable. The room looks out over a cobweb of roads woven in between several multi-storey buildings. Almost entirely hidden behind one of these nondescript grey structures crouches the Wat Bowonniwet Vihara, which draws attention to itself with its partly visible golden chedi. The small window in my bedroom faces the opposite direction, looking straight at the tall wall of the army complex across the road. I assume it had to be built small for security reasons, or perhaps the architect of this building decided that with such a huge wall blocking the sunlight, a large window would have been pointless.

It was noon by the time I finished moving in, so I set off for the city in hopes of finding food and seeing a few sights. In an alley near the infamous Khaosan Road I found an Indian restaurant; I could tell it was Indian because the large-screen TV was employed solely to beam a still image of a smiling Hindu goddess. The restaurant appeared to be directed by a group of three related women, who from the leisure of their table bossed around the only waiter in the establishment. Meanwhile, another man – apparently loosely affiliated with the restaurant – went around making conversation with the guests. I overheard him complaining to a Russian lady that it was far too cold in Yakutsk, and as soon as he found out I was from the Czech Republic, he told me Prague was where he caught chlamydia and gonorrhoea.

The main item on my itinerary was the Grand Palace, a sprawling and richly decorated complex that houses the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. Despite serving as the official residence of the Thai monarch since Bangkok’s founding in 1782, a significant portion of the palace is accessible to the public, as the king now lives in a palace to the north of the historical centre. Still, the Grand Palace continues to be used for official functions, which may explain why, on my way there, I happened upon a large military procession. Led by a marching band, it continued with a whole host of soldiers carrying the country’s two most prominent flags: the national flag and the yellow flag of the king. Behind them rode a small car with tinted windows, and following it was a group of high-ranking male officials and another group of female ones. A large van carrying a squad of cameramen trailed the group at some distance.

One enters the Grand Palace through the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, which is the most finely decorated part of the entire complex. Enclosing its chedis and giant guardian statues, the inner walls of the arcades depict scenes from the Ramakien, the Thai version of the Ramayana. I overheard an Indian tourist tell his tour guide that the story of the main antagonist, Ravana, is very different in India, which I found rather odd as the Ramayana varies from region to region. In some parts of India, Ravana is in fact more of a tragic character than a villain.

On a high throne at the very centre of the temple complex sits the famed Emerald Buddha. Made of jasper rather than emerald, the statue was created in the first century BCE in Patna, India – so say the Khmer chronicles, at least. Due to political unrest, the Buddha was taken to Sri Lanka and then Angkor Wat in Cambodia, from whence it was stolen by the invading Thai army. According to the more popular account in Thailand, however, the Buddha was revealed in the northern Lan Na kingdom by the strike of a lightning bolt. The statue spent two hundred years in Laos after a dynastic union and was only brought to Bangkok by an invading Thai army in 1779.

Dwarfed by all the finery around him, the Emerald Buddha sits so far removed from the hall’s entrance that the details of the statue are only barely visible. More prominent, however, are his “clothes,” which change according to the season. In the hot season, he wears bangles on his naked limbs and strips of gilt fabric across his chest, while in the cold season, he covers up with a single garment from shoulders to toes. In the rainy season, he wears the robes of a monk, leaving one shoulder bare.

The rest of the palace is not very accessible. Tourists are funnelled along the walls of the complex before landing in front of the palace museum, after which they may either grab a meal at the cafeteria or visit a temporary exhibition at one of the palace halls. One can see the main structures of the palace, of course, but only from the outside. The excursion ends on the same road where it began – that is, to the north of the palace complex – except by an exit closer to the river.

Having finished my excursion, I continued south along the river to Wat Pho, a temple complex known for its massive statue of a reclining Buddha. The pose is very popular in Southeast Asia, depicting the Buddha at the moment of his enlightenment (which visitors also attempt to achieve by tossing coins into 108 bronze bowls). Unlike the rest of his altogether realistic body, the black soles of his feet are rectangular and show 108 panels made of mother-of-pearl. One peculiarity of the temple is that it contains a school of Thai medicine, and people frequently visit it to receive massages.

My final stop for the day was Wat Ratchabophit, which serves as the seat of the Supreme Patriarch of Thailand. Thanks to the circular cloister at its centre, the temple appears rather unusual when contrasted with its more angular counterparts across the city. Its gardens are also a singular sight, containing numerous chedis, towers, and a slender, snow-white church.