Tallest Stupa in The World

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Geo: 13.82, 100.06

It was a busy road out of Bangkok which didn't let up all day, I feel like I don't properly breathe in the chaos and actually have a long drawn out sigh of relief when I hit a quiet spot which is how I know I'm under pressure. It was like a motorway leaving the city and I find it extremely hard going when I have to use the off ramps when joining new roads, it's like cycling on a spaghetti junction.


At least the first 30km out of Bangkok was just chaos before I managed to get off and onto a single track country road full of banana plantations, palm trees and rice paddies which was a welcome relief from the traffic. At one point after losing my bearings I visited a massive temple (which they all seem to be) which still had bunting up from the recent 2 day Buddhist festival which left the Koh San Road dry, and a bit of a cleanup operation was still underway. I love the colors of the temples normally a white, cream or pale blue with all the fancy mosaics etc. and I'm always drawn to them.


The monks are frequently good at English which means I can have a conversation and a bit of an education while I'm at it as I try to find out a little about their religion, and I'm always sent on with good wishes and good luck. One temple near Nakhon Pathom was the biggest temple I had seen and was very new to the extent it wasn't actually finished yet with many windows and doors still missing. The huge screen windows were black with beautiful mother of pearl inlaid designs which looked very detailed and complex, lovely, and looking around you could see they were in the final stages of completing it. This temple had many elderly monks living at it and when I was heading back to my bike a number of them were huddled around my bike, pointing and discussing and I was greeted with excitement and lots of thumbs up and blessings of being out here on my own.


Nakhon Pathom is apparently home to the world's tallest stupa and actually I thought I had just visited it given the scale of the temple I had been in, but it was still to come and I was suitably impressed when I got to visit. Before that however I managed to get a room and head out to the nearby market which was a fantastic experience, apart from all the stalls with clothes, there was a large food market which is where I sourced my dinner, corn on the cob, BBQ fish which was chopped into bite size pieces and what a thought was mussels in a shell turned out to be more a fried version of it but still tasted good. Last but not least was an ice cream drink, I had no idea what I was getting when I ordered, I didn't even know if the bowls of chunks were sweet, sour or anything else but it ended up delicious, I just let the young guy put it together for me while kind of nodding away at his suggestions, it good trying new foods and all part of the trip.


Phra Pathommachedi in Nakhon Pathom can be seen for miles around and is the tallest stupa in the world at 127 meters and apparently dates back to the 4th Century, it was an impressive sight and I am glad I deviated from my route south to come and visit. I seem to get great information on places to go from other cyclists and is by far the best information I've had which continues to make my trip so exciting and unique. The impressive gold stupa stands majestically right in the center of the complex and is surrounded by walkways, many other temples, accommodation, stalls, an impressive museum which houses a number of pieces of local pottery, beautiful gardens, history and tourists.


On my way in I join a young group of schoolkids who show me around and tell me what to do from writing a message on scripts, to buying candles and insence etc. to offer to the Buddha, to getting a bowl full of coins and distributing the coins into a number of other bowls that were laid out, maybe as many as 50 of them but I couldn't quite get the meaning of this. They were a fun group of kids and really made the visit for me, but as I'm leaving today I had better hit the road.


So onwards to Kanchanaburi and the historic Death Railway and Bridge over the River Kwai, but unfortuneatly this time I couldn't get off the main route and the first 40 km was just head down, bum up and pedaling away. Thankfully I turned onto Route 323 getting me off the main Route 4 and again visited a few temples on the way and Tesco Lotus for lunch, parking my bike in the Tesco bike park, you ought to see the size of just the motorbike parking areas never mind anything else, so different from home.

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Photos

Mussels
But basically tried, when they were facing up i thought they were on shells.

Food Market
Pakora