khiemtran | Wat Pho

What Pho has guardians both languid...

And not so languid...

Not to mention these fierce ones in European dress...

But despite the guardians, the real danger seems to Non-Thai Pickpocket Gangs...

Wat Pho is most famous as the home of "one of the largest reclining Buddhas in the world". Which I take to mean that someone, somewhere has built one even larger.

Here are his feet.

Unfortunately, this was the best shot I could get of the entire statue.

Collection bowls along the far side of the building. People change notes into coins so they can drop one into each bowl as they go.

Some of the sights around the temple grounds.

Wat Pho is also the home of Thai massage, and hence, Thailand's oldest "university".

These diagrams illustrate key points on the human body.

And other bodies...

A quick note on pronunciation here... The "a" in "Wat" is actually a short "ah" sound, so it should rhyme with "but" (at least the way I say "but"). Low class consonant, short vowel, dead syllable, gives a rising tone. "Pho" is pronounced with an aspirated "P" and an "oh" sound that rhymes with "toe". Low class, long vowel, live syllable gives a midtone.

In general, if you see "Th" or "Ph" in romanized Thai, it means they are pronounced as normally aspirated Ts and Ps respectively (like, for example, in "Thailand").

What is aspiration? It's when you add a puff of air when you say a given letter. In English. the only difference between T and D is that when you say T, you'll actually add a little puff of air and when you say D you won't. If you've never tried it before, but your hand in front of your mouth and say "too too too" and "do do do". The same applies for P and B.

The trick is that Thai actually has three different levels of aspiration, so there are two extra consonants, one between T and D and one between P and B. In some romanizations, these are written as B/BP/P and D/DT/T, but in others they are written as B/P/PH and D/T/TH. So, if you see a B or a D, or a PH and a TH, you can be sure how to say them, but if you see a P or a T, you need to understand which system of romanization was used before you can pronounce them properly.

Incidentally, the Thai spelling of Pho in Wat Pho is also the same as the word for "Bodhi tree". So, possibly, the temple is just named after the tree. (I note there's also a "Vat Phou" in Laos, which is most likely the same word in Lao.)