I was telling you the other day about my trip to Bang Pakong
to watch the dolphins. My Thai guidebook only told me about the
dolphins, the bats on Bird Island, and the fishing nets. Nothing else.
So, I decided to drive around a little to see what I could find. What a
found was Wat Tha Kham. Usually temples are all much he same as each
other. But, this one was pretty surreal. Dotted around the grounds were
parts of a gigantic walking Buddha. They even had a melting works in
the temple grounds where I saw casts for different sections of the
Buddha image. The head was already in a shrine. In front of this were
some giant upside down feet! I am not sure how many years it will be
before it is finished, but go and take a look at this temple now before
they complete it.
I have constructed a map for you based on Google Earth.
It shows you quite clearly the Bang Na -Trad tollway that we drove on
to go to Bang Pakong. We came down from the tollway just before the
bridge. Then, on the other side of the bridge we did a u-turn and
turned left onto the road you can see just south of the bridge. At the
intersection, we turned right to go to Moo 1 Pier. We got on the boat
here and went down river to the Gulf of Thailand which took about 30
minutes. After our boat trip, we went back the other way to go to eat
lunch at Moo 8 Pier. On the way back to the tollway, we stopped at Wat
Tha Kham. Opposite here there is an information center which wasn’t
open at the time of our visit. Looking through the windows we could see
that the display looked quite interesting and informative. OK, now you
have no excuse not to go!