Much like the castles and palaces in Europe, they drag it out of moth balls for royal functions and show occasionally, but all the real work goes on someplace else. The king and his wife, who are 84 and 78 respectively, have moved into a modern new home that’s blissfully air conditioned and about 30 minutes away. These older buildings haven’t been the “palace” since the 1950's.
Although it's not a subject for polite (or public) conversation, our guidebook tells us that this was abandoned as the royal residence when the former King (Rama VII) was found shot to death in his bedroom in 1946.
That's some significant haunting to make a person give up a house this size, and NOBODY talks about it, nor is it considered polite to ask.
The king is living in the hospital right now, since he’s in poor health.
While we’re talking about the King, a few factoids.
He’s an American. Talk about outsourcing employment. It seems that the former King was his uncle, with a brief stint as his older brother was king. He had no heir, and when the current King was born his dad was in Med School in Boston. The King of Thailand thus holds dual citizenship and an American Passport.
The King and Queen have four kids, a son and three daughters. The son is 52, and it’s assumed that he will take over when his dad dies. He currently does a lot of the ceremonial stuff for his dad.
While we're talking about Wat Phra Kaew, it's important to note that the "Temple" aspect isn't to be downplayed; this is the equivalent of a working cathedral, and just like in the European churches, you're expected to act appropriately. Shorts, tank-tops, short skirts and open toed shoes are not allowed. If you've overlooked that fact, you can rent sarongs or pants to wear.
At the Vatican, you could buy paper pants to wear. Same concept.
Words can’t describe the Palace, which was built in 1782. You see a lot of the mosaic style of ornamentation like on the other buildings, and there are tons and tons of statues. There's a lot of european influence, but it's been "Thaialized" so there's no doubt as to the influence.
Monks were chanting while we were there, and you could hear it throughout the complex (click on the video below):
Sometimes it’s hard to get the whole story down while walking and writing and avoiding the crowds.
Another of the buildings holds the Holy Buddism Book. It’s the one with lots of mirrors and gems on the outside. Apparently, it originally had a lot of gems but as they’ve been lost or stolen, most are now replaced with synthetics or colored glass.
One display that is not colorful is a scale replica of the Buddist Monastary at Angor Wat, in Cambodia. We’ll be seeing those ruins in real life later in the trip.
It, like most government / official buildings in Thailand, is accompanied by a Buddist Temple – the Temple of the Emerald Budda - Wat Phra Kaew, which is the holiest temple in Thailand.
We have no pics of the Emerald Budda. This complex is one of the few places that’s taken a page from the Vatican’s playbook and doesn’t allow pictures. Unfortunately, we didn’t find any gift shop that could sell a CD with pics we could download.
The Emerald Budda sits on a throne in a temple, up very high – probably 40 feet above the floor. He’s cut from green jade and is 62 cm tall by 60 cm wide. He has three costumes – one for each season – and they are changed by the king when appropriate.
During the hot season he wears a diamond encrusted gold rob, a solid gold robe in the cool season, and a guilded monk's robe in the rainy season. Right now it's the cool season, and he’s clothed in 2 Kiolgrams of white gold in his costume.
It ain’t necessarily Barbie’s Dream wardrobe, but that’s not bad for a 700 year old guy who doesn’t get around much.
The Emerald Budda was made in Thailand, then was stolen by Laos one time when they invaded. After that, King Rama I, who’s kind of the George Washington of Thailand and who, like George was a warrior prior to going into government, invaded Laos and got it back. This was in the 12th Century.
While bringing it back to Thailand, several miracles happened on the road, leading him to build the Temple of the Emerald Budda after he got elected King and became the father of modern Thailand.
Like anyone who has an old house knows, there’s always upkeep to be done on a place like this. They’re coming up to an anniversary and the murals, which tell the story of different parts of Budda’s life, are being cleaned and refreshed throughout the building. Unlike historical artifacts in a lot of other places, these aren’t necessarily protected from the weather all that much. Many are on open porches without rainguards of any particular type, although we suspect that something is done to help protect them during inclement weather.
One concession to reality that was apparent was Pigeon Screens, just like in Washington, DC, Rome, or New York City. Apparently a dislike of pigeon poop is somewhat universal.
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