Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
clining Buddha is a colossal statue plated in gold, the feet and eyes engraved with mother-
of-pearl. Neither resting nor asleep, he is passing into nirvana. Although this famous im-
age draws the crowds, the temple compound is packed with other Buddha figures, many of
them also brought from the ruins of Ayutthaya. There are sixteen gates around the temple
complex, guarded by Chinese stone figures that were originally used as ballast in the trad-
ing ships plying between the two countries.
From Wat Pho it is only a short walk to the tip of Rattanakosin Inner Island, where
the inner moat meets the Chao Phraya, guarded these days not by a fort but by the Phra
Ratchawang Municipal Police Station, housed since 1914 in a fragment that is all that re-
mains of an old palace. On the way there is the Museum of Siam, housed in the former
Ministry of Commerce building designed by Italian architect Mario Tamagno in 1922,
which stands at the southern extremity of the fortress that was built opposite the Wi-
chaiprasit Fort on the Thonburi bank during the time of Ayutthaya's King Narai.
