Wat Arun stands on the Thonburi side of the Chao Phraya, opposite Tha Tien and Wat Pho. The cross-river ferry from Tha Tien is the right arrival; you see the prang grow as the boat crosses. The central tower is a steep, short climb on porcelain-encrusted stairs that are closed in sections when they repair them. The rest of the wat is a working monastery: bells, dogs, a bot with murals. Go late in the day. The ceramic holds the last light, and the river boats become lamps.
A temple that changed kings’ views
There was a temple here before Bangkok was the capital. Taksin, who made Thonburi the seat after Ayutthaya fell, used it. Rama II and Rama III raised the present prang in the early nineteenth century, a Khmer-inspired tower about 70 metres high, faced with broken Chinese porcelain that had come as ballast in rice ships. The name is Aruna, the dawn. The Emerald Buddha lived here for a time before Rama I moved it across the river to Wat Phra Kaew. Naga and yaksha figures climb the corners. The iconography is Hindu-Buddhist in the Thai manner: Indra, the three-headed Erawan, a cosmos you can walk up until the rail stops you.
Thonburi is not a suburb. It is the older west bank, canals and warehouses, now looking at the tourist island of Rattanakosin. Wat Arun is the west bank’s answer to the Grand Palace: one tower instead of a compound, cheaper, better at sunset.
Why the prang is on every river postcard
People come because it is the most distinctive silhouette on the river, because the porcelain close-up is stranger than the photographs, and because it is a short ferry from the Grand Palace circuit. It is popular at 4 p.m. in a way you can still use. Midday is glare and a climb you will regret in the heat. The stairs are high and shallow; if they are open, use your hands.
Night lighting has improved. The tower from a river longtail after dark is a different building from the one you climbed.
If you go
Ferry from Tha Tien, climb if open, sit on the terrace, ferry back. Do not stack this with a full Grand Palace morning without food and water in between. Modest dress. The neighbourhood behind the wat is more interesting than another circuit of the same courtyard. Sunset here, Grand Palace at opening: that order, not the reverse.
