Chedis at Wat Pho, Bangkok

I was quite taken with the lovely chedis at Thai Buddhist temples. We learned from our tour guide, Tammy, that they were built by wealthy families as offerings and adorned with colorful shards of Chinese ceramics, patterned into flowers and other designs. (Some what surprisingly, the grounds of Wat Pho were decorated with Chinese stone statues, but Tammy explained that King Rama I repurposed them as decorations after using them as ballast when Thai merchant vessels returned from China, since at the time Thailand exported much more than it imported.)

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