However, if you can find the temple, it’s well worth a visit, as the demon statues are impressive and at nightfall there is the Ratchada Night Market, which is a great bazaar to see.
Directions: Take the MRT to Huai Khwang station and walk out onto Pracha Sonkhra Road. Walk down the road for about 10 minutes, and turn right into Pracha Sonkhra soi 34 or 38, and follow the street until the end, and the temple is there.
Address: 88 Soi Inthamara 59, Din Daeng, 10400, and it’s also known as Wat Inthamara.
Phone: +6622752544
The actual area of land that Wat Kunnatriruttharam is on is pretty big and has about a dozen or more buildings and six or seven different temples all scattered around. Some of the little huts, like the one pictured below, have people living inside – given homes by the temple. On a busy day at weekends, all the local fortune tellers gather there to give readings to the Thais and there are food stalls set up inside the grounds of the temple.
There’s a strange skeleton in one of the buildings, and nobody could explain why. I guess it’s just one of those odd things. Personally I love the picture of the little girl doing her homework sitting on her grandmother’s food cart. The old lady, her grandmother, has a coffee stand there that she has run for about ten years. She has club feet, the result of an accident when she was a child,when she fell down the stairs and broke her ankles. Her parents couldn’t afford the hospital, so the bones were left to heel by themselves, giving her the disability throughout her life. She now takes between 2,000thb and 4,000thb a day from her little drinks stand. I’ve always admired that get-up-and-go attitude of Thailand.
While I was drinking my tea, I started talking with a Thai guy (he said his name is ‘Thai’) who sat at the table. Turns out he works at a Thai restaurant in Cirencester, Gloucester. He moved there some 10 years ago for work and was visiting home in Bangkok for a few weeks. Small world!
The pictures here are from a pretty quite day, which is a good time to admire the architecture. The demon statues are really impressive, in a big range of red, green and gold colours.
This is a great temple to visit, that virtually no western tourists go to, as it’s not well know, and it’s hidden away deep in a maze of alleys in a residential area.
If you were to make a day of the trip, visit the temple then wait for nightfall when the Ratchada night bazaar starts. There are plenty of street food restaurants that open their doors, as well as bars here. The bars have live music, for Thai people, so it’s all sung in Thai. Again, there aren’t many western tourists in this area, so it’s a great place to go and see a little bit of the real Thailand.
is there anyone who could speak english at the temple?
I didn’t speak in English with anybody at the temple. I don’t think anyone at Wat Kunnatriruttharam would be able to say more than a few basic words in English.