Hiking: Bangkok; Wat's Up?

I arrived in Bankok from Phukett (1 hr flight) and for some ineffable reason immediately felt welcome-

My taxi ride to my hotel was a bit of an adventure The driver got lost and eventually stopped and suggested I walk I looked at Google Maps and it said over an hour so politely declined I then gave him my phone with directions which seemed to help tho at various points I had to yell out turn left! A bad sign when the passenger is more familiar with Bangkok then the taxi driver

I decided to immediately visit 2 of the city's most famous and revered Buddhist temples, Wat Phro and Wat Arun. Wat Phro holds the largest collection of Buddas and houses the famous and enormous Golden Reclining Buddha which is impossible to adequately capture in a photo (it takes up a whole building)-

To enter any Buddhist temple. you must take off your shoes, which leads to a lot of on and off with footwear. The feet of the Reclining Buddha tell of his spiritual journey-

Apparently Buddha himself is not obligated to remove his shoes in his own temple.

The Wat Phro complex is huge (about 20 acres?).

It is interesting and somewhat incongruous to see people praying to Buddha amidst throngs of tourists, but perhaps one would observe the essentially the same thing at St. Peter's in Rome or other famous Christian sites. In any case, the monks seem to take it all in stride and welcome any tourist participation (so long as shoes are off) as I later saw tourists helping the monks wrap a Buddha. Still can’t quite grasp this

The older site of Wat Phro is right across the Chao Phraya river, which runs through much of central Bangkok. In fact, it is quite convenient (and cheap- 70 cents) to take the ferry up and down the Chao Phraya to visit certain places.

They don't mess around on that ferry when embarking and disembarking. The small official lady hounds you to line up and when they pull in they virtually toss you off (or on) the boat and they are out of that stop in less than a minute. Thai efficiency, I guess.

Wat Phro- which was founded about the same time as Bangkok itself in the mid- 18th century- appears to attract a lot of Thais in traditional garb who come to honor and pray to Buddha here.