Word: phra
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...most splendid capitals three centuries back, gets lost in the modern Thai glitter. Aside from two museums and a famed crafts center, this UNESCO World Heritage Site offers too many temples in every which way. Less diligent tour groups never make it beyond the emblematic columns of the Wat Phra Si Sanphet to the many parks strewn with headless statuary and palace foundations. But Wat Mahatat, with a stone head emerging from gnarled bodhi (or fig tree) roots, is as good as historical rummaging gets. And the reclining Buddha, speckled with fresh squares of gold leaf, seems hundreds of miles...
...trip to Bangkok is complete without a tour of the city's opulent wats, or Buddhist temples. Tourists are awed by the Emerald Buddha at Wat Phra Kaeo and marvel at Wat Arun, the Temple of Dawn . But for those who know where to look, Bangkok and its environs also offer a selection of weirder wats. Consider Wat Hua Krabu, an unassuming temple in the seaside suburb of Bang Kunthien. Stacked amid the incense and amulets are more than 5,000 buffalo skulls, deposited by Thais in the hope of speeding their favorite beasts of burden to a happy reincarnation...
When we pulled off the highway and entered the hamlet of Pho Phra Doh, consternation furrowed the old doctor's brow. "This doesn't look like the place at all," he said. But then again, he hadn't been back for 32 years...
...Back at Pho Phra Doh, Boonma hobbles off down a dirt track and stops with a triumphant smile before a ramshackle hut. A muscular Karen tribesman emerges, squints, then breaks into a smile. "It's the doctor," shouts the Karen, who introduces himself as Kanong. The last time they met, Kanong was a 13-year-old communist fighter. An old man appears, and Kanong says, "This is Noo, my father. Remember?" Boonma does. It's hard to forget someone who once held a gun under your chin. They shake hands. "No hard feelings," says Noo. "You're welcome here...
...Phra Charoen Atipalow has experienced this firsthand. Collared near Bangkok's Chatuchak market on suspicion of being a bogus monk, he is interrogated at a nearby temple by its abbot, Phra Thai Thammarat, and Phra Khrusri Pattanakhun, chief of the monk police. He insists he's a real monk from Chaiyaphum. But when Phra Khrusri calls a few of Charoen's supposed temples, no one will vouch for him. Rather than turn him over to the two waiting policemen, the abbot decides Charoen should be disrobed and expelled for improper begging. The legal penalty is only $4.50 for the first...