Wat Pho
Temple Of The Reclining Buddha, Rebuilt Under Rama I From 1788; The Birthplace Of Traditional Thai Massage; Its Epigraphic Archives Are On UNESCO'S Memory Of The World Register · Bangkok, Bangkok
Wat Pho, formally Wat Phra Chetuphon, is one of the oldest and largest temples in Bangkok, a walled compound just south of the Grand Palace on Rattanakosin Island. A temple stood here before Bangkok was founded; King Rama I rebuilt it from 1788, and King Rama III enlarged it in the 1830s into a kind of open university, carving treatises on medicine, massage, history and poetry onto marble slabs that are now on UNESCO's Memory of the World register. Its star is the Reclining Buddha, about 46 metres long and covered in gold leaf, whose feet are inlaid with mother-of-pearl symbols. Around it lie four great tiled chedis for the first four Chakri kings, cloisters lined with gilded Buddha images, Chinese stone guardians that came as ballast in trading junks, and more than a thousand Buddha images in all. Wat Pho is also the home of traditional Thai massage, with a school and massage pavilions inside the grounds. It is calmer than the palace, open later, and a ferry from Tha Tien pier outside crosses to Wat Arun in a few minutes.
2 Sanam Chai Road, Phra Nakhon, Bangkok, Bangkok, 10200, Thailand
NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED. The typical pattern: Wat Pho has opened every day, with no weekly closing day, from about 8 am to about 6:30 pm, with some recent reports of later closing, and the last tickets sold a little before closing. The massage pavilions have kept roughly similar hours but take their last customers earlier, and their queue can close in the afternoon. The monks' quarters in the southern half are never open to sightseeing, and individual halls close briefly for chanting, ceremonies or restoration. The Tha Tien cross-river ferry runs from early morning into the evening, while Chao Phraya Express boats stop in the early evening. The traps that ruin a day are believing a stranger who says the temple is closed, leaving the reclining Buddha until the late-morning crush, finding the massage queue already closed, and reaching the Grand Palace next door after its last entry, which is hours earlier than Wat Pho's. Confirm current times before relying on them.