Golden Mount, Ban Bat, and Khao San Road

Tuesday was a Buddhist holiday called Visakha Puja Day (or Vesak or Buddha's Birthday). So, Uncle Jeremy had off of work and he, Aunt Tara, and I were able to go out together. We decided to go to Golden Mount in Wat Saket, Ban Bat, and Khao San Road.

Wat Saket was packed with people observing the holiday. I did a little research on the holiday and it seems to be an observance of Buddha's birthday, which changes every year depending on the lunar calendar. But it is also a celebration of all three major events in Buddha's life: birth, enlightenment, and death. There were lots of people praying and hanging bells with their wishes and offerings on Buddha statues. There were also a lot of monks around the Wat.

Seven days of the week Buddhas (Wednesday has two). I was born on Tuesday, so my Buddha is the reclining one.

Chinese New Year animals inside Golden Mount.

Video of someone ringing one of the gongs. They make a really low noise that I think is beautiful.

Golden Mount was beautiful. It's a huge spire that you climb up and when you reach the top you can see the entire city. It was crazy to see how many temples there are around Bangkok.

On the way down, there's a sculpture of vultures eating a human body while others watch. The sculpture is a homage to when a plague hit Bangkok. The tradition then wasn't to cremate or bury bodies inside the city, but to take them out one specific gate near Wat Saket to do so. Unfortunately, so many people were dying that the monks couldn't bury or cremate them fast enough and bodies were left out in the open inside the temple. Soon the vultures came to eat the bodies. The sculpture commemorates that.

After Golden Mount, we went across the street to Ban Bat Community (pronounced like bon baat), where they make traditional monk bowls. The bowls were traditionally used for the monks morning food donations, but now the main buyers are tourists. It's a dying art because most monks use cheaper, factory made bowls now. It was a windy path through a bunch of alleys, houses, and shacks to get back to where the bowl making happened, and because it was a holiday there weren't many other people there (or really any tourists at all back there). 

They make the monk bowls with eight separate pieces of steel, which is said to represent the eightfold path. Then they use copper wires to hold the steel together and finally cover it in layers of lacquer as a finish. It was a really awesome experience to see them at work. This isn't something a lot of people visiting do and it was really special to see this ancient practice being done. I was glad to be able to buy a small bowl to take home and help support the people who keep this practice alive.

After that, we went over to Khao San Road (pronounced cow sahn). This is near where a lot of the hostels where backpackers stay is and its packed full of tourist vendors. I picked up a few souvenirs and then we had lunch at a restaurant where they have Northern Thai food. It was delicious (how many times have I typed that since I've been here? All the food here is amazing). 

All the plants here are so pretty!!

These Ronald McDonald statues doing the wai (pronounced why) are outside like every McDonald's and I love them to death.