Wat Traimit, Bangkok
The five-and-a-half tonne solid gold Buddha at the gateway to Chinatown, hidden under plaster for two centuries.
Wat Traimit, Bangkok
Wat Traimit stands at the western end of Yaowarat, Bangkok's Chinatown, and holds the largest solid gold Buddha image known: three metres tall and around five and a half tonnes, seated in the earth-touching posture.
Its history is the reason people come. The figure spent generations as an unremarkable stucco Buddha of no particular value. In 1955, while it was being moved to a new building, the image slipped and the plaster cracked - revealing solid gold underneath. The covering is generally understood as camouflage applied before an invasion, then forgotten once those who knew had died. Fragments of the original plaster are displayed with the image.
The upper floors of the modern building house a museum of the Golden Buddha and an exhibition on the founding of Bangkok's Chinese community, which makes the temple a sensible first stop before walking into Yaowarat itself.
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