Wat Khun Krai > Wat Ban Kruat (48km) – part 1/4

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Today is such a day full of pictures and stories that I decided to cut it in 4 parts. This morning we started with an unexpected and short visit of an old temple. Then we cycled to Suphan Buri where we ate breakfast and visited a famous temple called Wat Palelai. The rest of the visit will be described in the coming posts.

Map.

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This morning we started the day with the visit of Wat Manoa (Wat means temple and Manoa means Lemon). This is not its original name (which I don’t know). After its construction, the monks planted lots of lemon trees around the temple so the name changed after that.

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Its style is different from the common temple we can spot around Thailand so that’s worth the visit :-)

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Portrait view.

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These are the cause of that name changing.

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The lemons!

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Side view.

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Nice flowers around.

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The sculpture represent the monk who built this temple. Behind, Buddha stands quietly.

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We cycled a bit more to reach Suphan Buri and pushed until Wat Palelai. There is lots of building here. I don’t really know where to start. First we have some breakfast and then I will take a look.

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The first building I got in is the tallest one in the previous picture). You understand why it’s tall :-) Look at the guy with his ladder on the right hand side of Buddha :-)

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All around this temple there is a wall and an art gallery. Let’s have a look.

I presume, these paints tell the story of Thailand except everything is in Thai and Pita is not here. She came here many times so she stayed at the entrance doing stretching. So now, I will have to guess. Note that there is so much paint here and I did not take picture of each of them. The story might have started at one end but I’ve picked it up on the way. That’s okay, let’s continue. If you got better ideas I will put number front of each images :-)

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01 | What going on here? Someone in that house is sick. This boat carry some medicine maybe. The man on the stairs will bring the magic potion very soon to that woman so she will feel ok? Then we can see the countryside with plenty of authentic Thai houses and the beautiful sky :-)

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02 | Houu, there is a kind of party going on here. Lots of things to eat. The monks sit on the left side. The women at the back. The Prince or someone important is calling that woman because he wants to marry here. Apparently she is not agree… At the far back, there is a guy onto his knees at the doorstep. He must be the real lover but he is poor and very unlucky. Life is not fare…

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03 |Hmmm… this one is more tricky… The Prince lost his princess who left the Palace to find her original lover? So he paid someone a high price to find her?A very high price though. These chest are huge. Actually it must be chocolate coins because these guys would have not be able to carry those. In fact, knowing that 1 cubic metre of gold weight a bit more than 19.000kg, these chest must contain about half, so 9500kg!. These guys are carrying almost 5 tonnes each and are walking barefoot in the grass, down the stairs, down to the river, to put those chests in the boat! They must be quite fit I guess haha. How can this tiny boat can carry one… two… three… four… five chest! 50 tonnes of gold!!! No, Nah!, that’s chocolate coins for sure!

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04 | Finally, after months of research the prince got his princess back. She has a strong character. She keeps inviting her lover at night. This time, the prince found out. He is furious! ready to kill that poor guy.

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05 | ‘Cannot understand very clearly now. Did she changed her mind? Are they going on holidays?

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06 | The horse ride was not enough to impress her. She won’t go as far as he expects.

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07 | The prince and princess being on holidays, the villagers are taking other the village which used to be under control. The man onto the elephant look like the princess lover. “Let’s find them!” he says.

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08 | Interlude…

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09 | The villagers searched all around the forest until they found the prince’s horse without the couple. The horse is not giving up!

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10 | During that time at the village…

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11 | The villagers has created their own army. They are now looking for the prince and the princesses who left their Kingdom behind. They travel across the country asking for support.

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12 | At the other end of the country the prince (who lost his hair ;-) and the princess (who cut hers) have been captured by another clan. Bad luck!

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13 | The next day at sunrise, ssshoook!! They could ask some questions before though…

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14 | Being not satisfied yet these barbar burned them!

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Ok, tomorrow I will still be here. That’s very nice but I need more than an hour to see everything here… Okay, few more…

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15 | Many many many years later this story became a legend. Kids would try to scare each other by walking in dark forest and talk about what they heard.

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16 | Some people in that village try to communicate with the dead and learn more about what happened to this royal couple.

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17 | Some other people try to suffer by fire to reconnect with their ancestors.

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18 | Some others say that they did not get court. The princess was saved by a poor woman and brought to an hidden monk community somewhere in the country. The prince was bitten by a snake and did not survived…

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19 | Some people say that the prince did survive! He let the princess going to the that monk community and lived in the forest by himself for years. Their, he learned how to survive and many years later he showed up at a famous event organised every year. No one could recognise him. He has changed. That day he impressed everyone fighting that huge crocodile and people believe he was a kind of hero.

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Buddha would not be very happy to read my completely deformed story about a country he certainly likes. Sorry! Next time, think about having subtitles in your temples so I could understand the real story :-)

After having visited this endless first temple, I was going to walk another one but when I saw a dozen of bus on the carpark and hundreds of students coming out I thought “that’s it, I’m done. Let’s go back to meet Pita”.

2 thoughts on “Wat Khun Krai > Wat Ban Kruat (48km) – part 1/4

  1. Quelle histoire ! Je n’ai pas tout compris en fait, surtout que les personnages changent tout le temps de tête. Un coup maigre, un coup gros, un coup chevelus, un coup chauve ! Bon, Damien, faut que tu te mettes au thaïlandais ! Lol

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