Wat Bang Phra
On my recent trip to Bangkok one of the main objectives was to visit Wat Bang Phra and get a Sak Yant tattoo, also known as a sacred tattoo. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending how how you look at it, we arrived at Wat Bang Phra just 2 days before the huge tattoo festival was to take place. This meant that the normally quiet Wat had a few hundred people in attendance on the day which would be a lead up to the some 40,000 people that would be attending the tattoo festival on the weekend.
Wat Bang Phra is renowned as the place to get Sak Yant or sacred tattoos and they are given daily by the monks at the Wat. On this day and the week preceding the Tattoo festival many people come to have tattoos done as well as have previous tattoos re-blessed or recharged. To Thai people these tattoos don’t just represent traditional Buddhist images but they believe them to hold power and protection over the wearer. Once the Sak Yant is given the monk then blows a blessing into the tattoo bringing it to life and giving it power.
Most Sak Yant wearers return to Wat Bang Phra or other temples yearly to have their tattoos re-blessed by the monks. For a more detailed look at the Sak Yant including video please look at Sak Yant Thai Tattoo.
Well, as I said this was a very busy week for Wat Bang Phra and it didn’t look like getting my Sak Yant would be in the cards this trip but we spent an amazing morning walking around the Wat and through the throngs of the faithful taking a lot of pictures. I need to thank Catherine, my gracious host, from Women Learning Thai and her driver Khun Pissout for taking me to the Wat and for a wonderful day of sight seeing.
My next trip to Bangkok will hopefully find me again at Wat Bang Phra and getting a sacred Buddhist tattoo but until then you can enjoy the photos below and over 200 pictures of this trip in the Wat Bang Phra Gallery.
Wat Bang Phra Photos
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