Chinatown and Wat Traimit
Life in Bangkok is intense, busy, crowded and traffic-dominated. For a slightly different take on the same theme, go to Chinatown (just to the south-east of Wat Pho). It is home to Bangkok's large Chinese population, who have preserved their lifestyle, customs and food in their own enclave. Here you'll find a magical concentration of shops of all kinds: restaurants, teashops, jewellers, tailors, herbal pharmacies, and much more, spilling out onto the narrow streets in a blaze of colour.
Close by is Wat Traimit, also known as the 'Temple of the Golden Buddha'. Its main claim to fame is the large statue of the seated Buddha, 3 m (10 ft) high and made of solid gold and weighing 5.5 tonnes. Said to date from the 13th century, when the Thai capital was in Sukhothai, it was moved to Ayutthaya when that became the capital. To protect it from Burmese invaders, the precious statue was coated in plaster to make it look ordinary, and so it remained, and its true nature forgotten. In the 1950s, when the statue was moved to Wat Traimit, the plaster cracked, revealing the priceless interior.
