Wat Pathum Wanaram Rachaworawihan

This guide to Wat Pathum Wanaram in Bangkok centers on May 19, 2010, when soldiers took position on the elevated Skytrain tracks above a temple that had just been declared a sanctuary for protesters sheltering below. It follows the medics and volunteers who set up triage stations in the compound, and the accounts that later reached a criminal court about what happened that morning. It also reaches back to the temple's founding in 1857, when this land was still rice fields. Walk the lotus gardens and notice how deliberately quiet the compound feels today.