Royal Grand Palace: Walking around Wat Phra Keaw and The Grand Palace I

Common Walking Route in Royal Grand Palace

      If it is your first time to visit Wat Phra Keaw and The Grand Palace, don’t be afraid to get around without a tour guide. Follow me, I will lead you to highlight spots that you shouldn’t miss like having a private tour guide with you.

      After you hold the ticket, get a map and walk through the entrance gate to the monastic compound, the first thing you will see is a statue of Hermit Priest. It is believed that he was the first traditional doctor who later became the doctor of the Lord Buddha also.

Hermit Priest Statue at The Entrance of  Wat Phra Kaew

The Mural Painting of Thai version Ramayana

From this spot, where is always packed, we need to walk towards the gallery hall standing on our left. On this wall of gallery hall, there are mural paintings of Thai version of Ramayana story (Ramakien) for 178 chapters.

This whole story is a pretty long war between human and demon, though it is in fact just a story of fighting over a girl.

The guardian demons at the door

First shot, take some pictures with a pairs of door guardian demons. Both of them are character from the Ramayana story. One on the left with green body is a main character who has the strongest power in dark side, named Tosakan, and the other one (with white body) on the right, named Sahasna, is a relative of Tosakan. There are six pairs of this kind of demons in total, where one pair is at each door, so in the case you want to collected pictures of them, check it at the doors.

After taking pictures with these 6-feet-height demons, walk up to the elevated platform and you will be able to look closely to several important structures situated, including the golden giant stupa.

A mythical being statue and tourists

This golden round stupa in bell shape, named Phra Sriratana Chedi. Its architecture is similar to a popular style in Mid Ayutthaya period, around mid 15C, though it was actually built in 19C. The stupa enshrined holy relic of the Lord Buddha. Then, just walk a little to the left of the stupa. You will see statues in the idea of mythical being in Himmavan, mythical forest in Ramayana story. Beside the golden stupa, there is also a model of Angor Wat replicated for a memorial of Thailand winning over Cambodia at that time.

 
Tourists act as bearers at Wat Phr Kaew

The building right next to the golden stupa is a scripture hall, named Pha Mondop where it keep the original scripture. And the last building on the end of the other side of platform is Phrasat Phra Thep Bidon (The Royal Pantheon), navy blue building with corncob structure on the top of the roof. Inside the building, there are life size statues of preceding kings of Chakri Dynasty, the present dynasty. The building opens occasionally, but even so, this is always a hot spot for tourists to shoot pictures with mythical beings, monkey and demon bearers. The bearers look similar to one another; do you know which the monkeys are? Let me know if you know the difference.

The ordination hall of Wat Phra Kaew

The Emerald Buddha image by shooting the photo  out of the ordination hall

However, the most important building in this temple is the ordination hall, the oldest building, since 1782. It enshrines the most highly venerated Buddha image, The Emerald Buddha. It is one way to get in and one way out. In this building, you need to take your hat and shoes off before getting