
Wat Intharawihan
Thirty-two-metre standing Buddha — the golden "Luang Pho To" — built over sixty years and completed in nineteen twenty-seven.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Wat Intharawihan in Bangkok follows the monk Somdej Toh, who began building a colossal standing Buddha in 1867 with the blessing of King Mongkut, only to die at its foot four years in with the statue still unfinished. It traces the decades of construction that carried on after him, worker by worker, king by king, in the Banglamphu neighbourhood he wanted the figure to watch over. Listen for the relic from Sri Lanka sealed inside the statue's topknot.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
The Reclining Buddha
Gold-leaf reclining Buddha, forty-six metres long, with mother-of-pearl feet and the birthplace of Thai massage.
Wat Kalayanamit Woramahawihan
Riverside Thai-Chinese temple built in 1825, housing Bangkok's largest seated Buddha and Thailand's heaviest bell.
Wat Trai Mit Witthayaram Worawihan
Buddhist temple housing the world's largest solid gold Buddha, hidden under plaster for two centuries.
Wat Ratchanatdaram Worawihan
Nineteenth-century Buddhist temple crowned by thirty-seven iron spires, the last surviving structure of its kind in the world.
Wat Paknam Phasi Charoen
Vast royal temple complex where Dhammakaya meditation was born, crowned by an eighty-meter glass-mosaic stupa.
Wat Ratchapradit Sathit Maha Simaram
Grey-marble royal monastery built by Rama IV in eighteen sixty-four, with ashes of the king beneath its Buddha image.