A curious mixture of the divine and the mundane

We did very little in Bangkok apart from hang out on the Khao San Road looking cool. One afternoon however, we managed to summon up the requisite amount of energy for a little trip over to Wat Po - the temple of the reclining buddha.

It is a beautiful place and, in contrast to the Grand Palace a couple of hundred metres down the road, amazingly chilled out. It was about five o clock when we arrived. The sun was low in the sky. It was a relief to get off the street and away from the smelly, crazy rush hour traffic. We walked through the main gate and found ourselves in a cool, lush and tranquil garden, surrounded by ornate, intricate buildings which emanated a sense of agelessness. It felt like we had been transported back in time.

There was a pervasive sense of freedom - as if this place was not governed by conventional rules, but simply by the natural respect that everyone had for such a lovely, peaceful place. Not for the first time during my trip, I found that I had a huge, happy grin fixed permanently on my face. Children ran amok, chasing each other in the courtyards between the buildings.

Everything was decorated in such detail, as is the case with all the Buddhist temples in South East Asia, but this place was so much bigger than anything we had seen before. Big but without a feeling of grandness or ostentation. It was completely unintimidating. Stone figures of every imaginable shape and size stood on guard beside every single gateway in the temple complex.

We found ourselves in the centre and entered the temple there, removing our shoes before we did so. Inside, a ceremony was about to commence. Young monks sat cross legged on a raised wooden dais while a small group of tourists sat quietly at the back, video cameras out, observing without understanding. I took a quick photograph of the immense shrine at the front of the temple and crept out. I felt like I was intruding.

We still hadn't seen the reclining buddha so we carried on exploring. Presently we entered a courtyard in which my feeling of inner tranquility was shattered. Stalls selling sausages and satay, cheap metal buddha figerines, bangles and Coca Cola and surrounded us. We were approached by half a dozen women who pressed us to buy postcards from them. I guessed that we had found the reclining buddha. Sure enough, there it was, massive, gold, almost monstrous, fully fifty metres in length, tucked behind huge pillars in a building which dominated the courtyard. We were suitably impressed, but the warm, peaceful atmosphere did not return until we had moved into a quieter corner of the complex, where we found youngsters playing football and basketball on a playground outside a school building. I discovered later that these boys were young men who had most likely been sent here from all over Thailand to become monks and learn.

It was a curious mixture of the divine and the mundane, a place with a sense of place and time all of its own. It seemed a million miles away from the roar of traffic that drifted over the high walls surrounding the complex. When I left it felt as if I had left a small piece of myself inside. I may go back one day to find it again.