Wat Chaichumponchanasongkram (Wat Tai) is a temple with Royal Patronage.
This is how you would write the name of the temple "Wat Chai-chum-pon-chana-song-kram" [Wat Tai for short, "Tai" pronounced "Dai"] matching the place of vowels in Thai. The Thai alphabet was based mainly on Sanskrit, which writes some voewls above, under and BEFORE the letter they are said after. Thai also has some inbuilt vowels, which are indicated by the bracketed vowels. Were you thinking of learning Thai? Just to confuse things a bit more, the "n" in "p(o)n" is actually written as the Thai letter "L=Å". The "ng" and "ch" sounds are both single letters in Thai. At least that makes sense! PS the "ai" is one Thai letter too. "Ai" is the "y" sound in "my". I don't know why they write a "Â=Y" letter as well as the "ai" letter.
This is the abbot of Wat Tai: ¾ÃÐÃÒªÇÔÊØ·¸ÔàÁ¸Õ (»ÑÒ ¤ÃرǧÈì ».¸.ù, ¾¸.º., M.A.).
This is the main hall where most public fuctions are held. To the left is a building that houses an enlarged replica of the Buddha's footprint.
This is just inside the main entry. On the right we see a picture of the King's sister, who recently died. A picture of Luang Po Paibun is in the centre. He is the former abbot who died in 2004. He is also one of the Supporting Teachers from my previous ordination. To the left is the podium from which Dhamma talks [sermons] are given.
This is some of the artwork on the wall above the picture of the former abbot and below is some of the artwork on the ceiling.
This picture is from outside the outer gates to the Observance Hall.
This is a close-up of the back doors to the Observance Hall. All the windows and the front doors are decorated in a similar fashion.
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