Wat Chana Songkhram Ratchaworamahawihan

This guide to Wat Chana Songkhram near Khaosan Road in Bangkok goes back to a rice-paddy monastery called Wat Klang Na, before Rama I founded the Chakri dynasty and his brother, Prince Maha Sura Singhanat, handed the temple to Mon soldiers fleeing Burma. It follows those soldiers through three campaigns against the Burmese in the 1780s that gave the temple its present name. Listen for the contrast between the guesthouses humming behind you and the monks moving past the gilded chedis in front.