To the Temple of Dawn by Long Boat

We stopped at the Buddhist Temple of Dawn (Wat Arun), one of the most beautiful temples I’ve seen, on our long- boat ride along the Chao Phraya river in Bangkok. We climbed the steep stone steps all the way to the top level. Standing next to magnificent intricate carvings – it was the traditional Thai dancers’ that got Leila’s attention, and the horses carved into the top of the pillars around the main temple that got Rahul’s – the view of Bangkok is breathtaking. The descent was a little tricky with the two little kids, and my mum and her bad back. But not a problem.

After walking past hundreds of stalls selling colourful touristy stuff, we succumbed to Rahul’s cries for a toy. As we were buying a bucket of fish food, L and R chose fridge magnets with pictures of the temple on them.

As soon as the fish food touched the water, clusters of catfish flopped all over each other, slid around, even reached way out of the water to get some. It’s illegal to fish within 100m of a Buddhist temple, and people often spend free time feeding fish, so naturally the fish know exactly how to get to the holy waters of Bangkok.