Wednesday walking: Canals and Wats

Bangkok is sometimes called the Venice of the East - lots of canals branching off the main river, with arching white bridges over them.

Today is the full moon, which means that all of the temples were full of the faithful. We only discovered this when we arrived at Wat Pho, the oldest temple in Bangkok and the largest in Thailand. It was a vast grounds filled with countless gorgeous temples covered in glittering mosaics and moss-covered stone statues. One of the larger temples had young Buddhist monks listening to an elder monk read to them from Buddhist text (see photo below, on the left), and on the right, lay Thai people praying and listening. The golden buddha
was the largest I've ever seen, but it wasn't as big as the one that came next.

On our way to Wat Pho, we wandered into a small and peaceful "wat" (temple) this morning, right as this monk was ringing the bell in the marble belltower.