Wat Prayurawongsawat

Wat Prayurawongsawat, known to almost everyone as Wat Prayoon, sits on the Thonburi bank at the foot of Memorial Bridge, a few minutes’ walk from the old Portuguese quarter of Kudi Chin. It was founded in 1828 by Dit Bunnag, the most powerful noble at the court of King Rama III, who gave his own estate for the site, and its name honours his title, Prayurawong. It is a royal temple of the second class.

Two things make it worth crossing the river for. The first is the huge white bell-shaped chedi, whose careful restoration won a UNESCO Asia-Pacific heritage conservation Award of Excellence in 2013. The second is Khao Mo, an artificial rock hill in the middle of a pond, crowded with miniature chedis, shrines and old trees and home to many turtles, which gives the temple its popular nickname, Wat Khao Tao, the “turtle hill temple”.

Khao Mo is the temple’s oddity. Tradition says King Rama III, watching wax drip and pile up from a candle, liked the shape so much that he had a hill built in its likeness. The lumpy rock mound stands for Mount Meru, the cosmic mountain, and is said to be the largest and oldest artificial hill of its kind in Thailand; it has been a registered monument since 1979. Turtles and soft-shelled turtles live in the moat around it, protected as sacred animals.

Near the river, a white pedestal topped with three downward-pointing cannons marks a fireworks accident at the temple in 1836, when a cannon exploded during a celebration and killed seven people. The American missionary doctor Dan Beach Bradley treated the injured, in what is remembered as the first Western surgery in Siam. The great chedi, from the reign of King Mongkut, holds relics, and a former study hall, later Thailand’s first public library, is now a small museum of Buddha images and amulets found during the restoration.

Take the Chao Phraya Express Boat to Memorial Bridge pier (Tha Saphan Phut) beside Pak Khlong Talat and walk across Memorial Bridge; the temple is at the Thonburi end, by the river. Itsaraphap station on the MRT Blue Line is about 15 minutes’ walk.