Place of worship
Wat Ratchapradit Sathit Maha Simaram
2 Saranrom Rd, Khwaeng Phra Borom Maha Ratchawang, Khet Phra Nakhon, Krung Thep Maha Nakhon 10200
Grey-marble royal monastery built by Rama IV in eighteen sixty-four, with ashes of the king beneath its Buddha image.
This guide to Wat Ratchapradit Sathit Maha Simaram in Bangkok opens with King Mongkut, Rama IV, choosing a waterlogged plot beside a canal near the Grand Palace for his personal royal temple in 1864. It follows the unlikely fix he found for a foundation that wouldn't hold, and why the ordination hall went up sheathed in grey marble, four decades before Bangkok's more famous Marble Temple. You'll spot the brown-robed monks of the reformist order Mongkut founded, still walking these grounds today.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.