The Golden Mount Temple Fair

For over a century, Wat Saket has been hosting an annual temple fair around the full moon in November. The Golden Mount Temple fair marks the changing of the seasons, and is a cherished part of community life in Bangkok's Old Town.

the Golden Mount Temple Fair

The Temple Fair is part carnival and part religious festival. Temple fairs are popular in rural areas of Thailand, but are a tradition that's sort of disappearing in the cities. The Golden Mount Temple Fair, though, proves that people still love this old-fashioned community event!

a Ferris wheel at the Temple Fair

The Golden Mount at Wat Saket was lit up in brilliant light, its golden chedi sparkling brightly in the dark night sky. A long red silk had been wrapped around the temple's golden spire for the festival, and colorful pendants flapped in the gentle tropical breeze from the top of the mount.

the temple at night

After enjoying quite a bit of Thai carnival food (more on that in a future post!), Pinky and I entered the temple itself to see what was going on. Pinky hadn't been to a temple fair in years, and it was my very first time to attend one!

people making offerings at the Temple Fair

For all the dozens of times that I've been to Wat Saket, I always spend my visits going up the Golden Mount, and never really take much time to see the various other more traditional temple buildings on the grounds.

tall standing Buddha statue

This time, however, was the very first time I'd ever been to the temple at night, and each of the prayer halls and shrine rooms were open with a warm inviting glow.

a colorful temple building

The temple's main prayer hall was lit up in blue and purple lights, and we were attracted by the soft sound of monks chanting.

the temple looked beautiful all lit up at night

Inside, visitors were lining up to kneel in front of monks in order to receive a blessing. As they chanted, the monks tied strings around people's wrists and sprinkled them with holy water. Pinky and I queued up for a string bracelet. An extra blessing certainly can't hurt!

waiting for a blessing

It's not all spiritual though! A big part of the fair is all about food, carnival games, bounce houses, and even a haunted house (called a "Ghost House" in Thai). We didn't go in to the Ghost House, but it's a traditional type of attraction that shows off all sorts of traditional ghosts from Thai culture.

carnival games and lots of snacks

Then, it was time to climb up the Golden Mount itself! This is my favorite temple, and one of my all-time favorite spots in Thailand! It looked especially beautiful and mystical at night.

going up the Golden Mount

Hundreds of people formed a procession, slowly marching up to the top of the Mount while ringing the big bells that line the steps up. The bells clanged out loudly, and you could even hear them from the foot of the temple!

a procession to the top of the temple

We made our way to the top, took a look around, decided that there were far too many people crowding the upper levels of the Mount, and descended. On the way down, we stopped for another blessing.

floating candles

This time, we knelt in front of a monk, who chanted, tied yet another string around our wrists, and drew a holy symbol on our foreheads out of white paste as a blessing. The symbol is a type of "Urna". Similar to the red dot that is placed on the forehead in Hinduism, a Buddhist Urna is a symbol that is supposed to represent the "third eye", symbolizing the ability to look past the suffering of life. Often, these symbols appear on statues of the Buddha, usually stylized as a whorl of hair. It's also a popular symbol for a holy Buddhist tattoo.

after receiving a blessing

As I knelt in front of the monk, I was caught off guard as he suddenly spoke to me. I'm not used to monks speaking directly to people, especially not in English! He was a young guy, a few years younger than me.

"Are you really from Texas?" he asked.

I realized that I was wearing my Texas Rangers shirt.

"I am." I responded.

"I lived in Oregon for a while." he told me without any trace of an accent. I guess he must have studied abroad in high school.

He drew the symbol on my forehead and tied the string around my wrist.

"Don't mess with Texas!" he said as I bowed and walked off.

we got blessed by the monk, who drew a symbol on our foreheads