Steps Away From Stray: The Golden Mount

Not only does the Khao San Road area near Stray’s Bangkok office have great nightlife and awesome live music locals, but it ends up that it is near a pretty important historic area of Bangkok as well. Only nine minutes and thirty three seconds at a leisurely walking pace away from Stray is Wat Saket, a temple dating back to the 18^thcentury...

Built by King Rama I, the temple originally served the somewhat unpleasant purpose of being the capital’s crematorium and dumping grounds for just about 60,000 plague victims.   

Even though the temple’s history and art is spectacular in itself, the real reason why people come here is to visit its celebrated golden chedi (big pointy, somewhat phallic, building housing relics of Buddha) and artificial hill, Phu Khao Thong (aka the Golden Mount). Several years after Wat Saket was constructed, during the reign of King Rama III (1787-1851), it was decided that a chedi should be added to the temple, perhaps to add a bit of colour and happiness to the temple’s dismal history. Unfortunately, it happened that those commissioned to construct the large chedi were not the best builders and the building collapsed during the construction process because the chosen area’s soft soil could not support it. Since Buddhist belief holds that religious buildings cannot be destroyed, the mud and brick rubble was never cleared and, over time, it took the shape of a natural hill and became overgrown with weeds, giving it the appearance of a natural small mountain (phu khao). Years later, during the reign of Rama IV (1804-1868), the intended chedi was finally built on the new ‘small mountain.’  However, the chedi that stands today was constructed by Rama V (1853-1910), who also enshrined within it a relic of the Buddha (supposedly his teeth…) from India or Nepal.       

Awesome view from the top – once you’ve scaled 318 steps…


The Golden Mount for ants. The real one is at least… three times bigger (Derek Zoolander from Zoolander)