Wat Suthat

Wat Suthat Thepwararam stands in the Phra Nakhon district of old Bangkok, a short distance from the Grand Palace and the City Hall. It is a first-class royal temple, one of the most important in Thailand.

King Rama I began the temple in 1807 to house a large bronze Buddha brought by river from Sukhothai. Building continued under Rama II, who is said to have carved the wooden doors of the main hall himself, and the temple was completed in 1847 under Rama III.

The main hall, the wihan, holds the Phra Si Sakyamuni, a 14th or 15th-century bronze seated Buddha about 8 metres high, one of the largest surviving Sukhothai-era bronzes. The walls are covered with murals from the reign of Rama III showing scenes from the life of the Buddha and earlier lives. The ordination hall is one of the longest in Thailand, and twenty-eight Chinese-style pagodas on the lower terrace symbolise the twenty-eight Buddhas. Chinese stone statues, thought to have arrived as ballast on trading ships, stand in the courtyards. In front of the temple stands the Giant Swing, Sao Chingcha, a tall red teak frame once used in a Brahmin ceremony in which men swung high to catch a bag of coins with their teeth. The ceremony was stopped in the 1930s after fatal accidents.

Check admission at the gate. Shoulders and knees must be covered inside the temple. The area around the temple has shops selling Buddhist religious items.

The temple began life as Wat Mahasuthawas, set in a grove of Combretum trees on low, marshy ground called Dong Sakae that had to be filled before building. Rama I died before it was formally consecrated, so people knew it by nicknames such as Wat Phra To and Wat Phra Yai, after the great Buddha, or Wat Sao Ching Cha, after the swing outside.

The great Buddha in the wihan hides an older treasure. On the rear of its base is a gilded limestone relief about 2.4 metres high from the Dvaravati period, thought to date from the seventh or eighth century. In 1950 the ashes of King Ananda Mahidol, Rama VIII, were placed beneath the throne of the image, and a merit-making ceremony is held there every year on 9 June.

Around the ordination hall stand eight small shrines for the boundary stones, each holding grey marble carved with a three-headed elephant. Eight raised pavilions on the cloister walls were once used to scatter alms to crowds during state ceremonies. The temple sits a short walk from the Golden Mount and the Democracy Monument, so it fits easily into a morning on foot around Rattanakosin. Sleeveless tops, shorts and short skirts are not allowed inside the halls, and shoes come off at the door.