Ancient temple at the site of an ancient tragedy.

[peterbkk]

Wat Gu (also written Ku, but pronounced Gu), an old Thai temple located on the banks of the Chaophraya River in Nonthaburi, Thailand, has been here for about 250 years. 

In 1880, a tragedy happened right in front of the temple. One of the queens of the King of Siam - Rama V, Queen Sunandha, was in the royal barge going up river to the rural palace north of Bangkok. The barge tipped and she fell into the water with her 1 year old daughter. She was also pregnant at the time. Under the strict rules of that time, only royalty were allowed to physically touch royalty - on pain of death. So, no one in her retinue was able to jump in to save her. She drowned with her children.

The King built a memorial at this temple near where she drowned. 

The temple is also famous for its old chapel built sometime in the 1700s by the Mon people who migrated to this area. As I was wandering around taking photos, a monk approached me and asked if I would like to see inside the ancient chapel. He kindly opened it up and left me to take as many photos as I wanted. Lucky I had my RRS tripod in the car because it was quite dark inside. The inner walls are covered with ancient murals, some in quite bad shape but some quite distinct.

You can see some of the photos here:

http://www.peterwalker.com/watgu2015.html

 

Shot with A7Rii with either with the 55mm f1.8 prime lens or the 16-35mm f4 zoom.

 

[kiawui]

Very nice series. I think the images would have stood out more if the border of the image is thinner.

 

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