BKK: Climbing up Wat Arun

Well... the reason why we didn't actually go for the massage in Wat Po was, well... largely because I intended to cross the river to Wat Arun before the temple is closed. So we were sort of 'rushing', in a way, having seen all similar images of Buddhas in different temples.

So we crossed the river. It was about 5pm or so. And the main entrance into the ubosot (main hall) was already closed. But the prang, or the big chedi seen by the river, was still open to public. Entrance cost us 50 THB per person, but trust me, you'd want to visit this place. Especially when the sun wasn't too bright *ahem* or when it wasn't too hot and burning.

We were told earlier in our guide in Wat Phra Kaew that, the climb to the top of the prang takes a lot of courage. It was a steep climb, he said; and definitely not for the faint hearted.

Climbing up was easy as I didn't turn around to look down. It was steep alright. But it wasn't that all difficult. Tourists were actually 'kissing' each others' butt as they were going up; face at the level of the glutes of the person in front due to the different heights of the stair cases.

And if you were wondering, the colours on the prang was actually ceramic tiles. Some are even the whole of the ceramic, like seen in the photo above...

View from the 3 different levels on the prang was amazing. And the walkway was so narrow that you'd actually skip a beat when you lean over the walls. Or at least I did.

So we hung out at the top for a while before we finally decided we had enough...

Boy oh boy, true enough, coming down was... scary. The staircase was narrow to start with, allowing only one person to climb the stairs. And each staircase was of huge height gaps, making stepping down the staircase much more difficult than to go up. With nothing else to hold on to other than the steel rod at the side, it was indeed a difficult coming down.

And we rushed back across the river to catch the silhouette of Wat Arun in the sunset...

Photolog of Wat Arun