Bangkok's Penis Shrine

[Guest fountainhall]

This has been mentioned before on this Forum, but I thought it might be worth a reminder. Just behind the Swissotel Nai Lert Hotel (the old Hilton) at the top of Wireless Road (Thanon Witthayu) there is a small Penis Shrine, named the Goddess Tuptim Shrine. The notice says there are thousands of phallic symbols. That may have once been the case, but there are not nearly so many now. However, if you happen to be in that area, it’s worth the very short walk just to see it and take a photo or two.

 

It’s also worth popping in to the hotel for their excellent buffet lunch at just Bt. 400++ per head as I did with a friend yesterday. This is almost half the price of similar spreads closer to the tourist areas.

 

Finding the shrine is not so easy as it is not actually in the hotel grounds. To get to it, walk through the garden past the pool to the exit to the car park. Turn right. Instead of turning left on to the soi, keep going straight on. As the road turns right to the car park, the little entrance is there on your left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[KhorTose]

Are there any shops selling rubber knock-off of some of the statues?

[Guest fountainhall]

I guess you want to display it in front of your home - rather like this sign I saw in Bhutan

 

 

I understand there is a vendor in the evenings on Silom who sells a variety of similar "statues"

[ceejay]

I visited here a couple of years back. To get to it, Fountainhall's directions for getting there are correct, but perhaps a little more detail would be helpful. I went into the main entrance of the Swissotel and, walking past reception and straight ahead is a glass wall. Through that is a restaurant. Walk straight through the restaurant and there is an exit to the pool area. Turn right and follow the path along the poolside and you will come to a small gate. Go through that and you will be on a road. follow that to the right until you come to the shrine.

I'm told the hotel are not to keen on having tourists just walk through like that. I had no problems, but Ididn't ask!

There is an image of Nai Lert in the shrine itself. It's under trees and quite gloomy there, so you need to take a flash photograph:

There was also, rather incongruously, a filing cabinet:

I wondered for quite a while what this was for, and why it was here of all places. I think I am starting to understand these things. Thais seem to have a way of mixing the artisitic, the mystical and the pragmatic in their shrines and temples. So, the cheap clock bought from the market in a beautiful temple is for telling the time, the plastic chair is for sitting on and the filing cabinet was, no doubt, just a place for keeping files or other stuff.

I think that it offers a small window into the Thai attitude to religious buildings, which tend to be venerated in their own right in the West. I am not saying that is not the case in Thailand, but the attitude to religion, and religious buildings, in Thailand seems to me to be much more that they are a simple part of everyday life.

[Guest fountainhall]

Sorry ceejay, but I think your memory may not be quite accurate. If you pass reception, that means you must turn right as you enter the hotel. Reception is a slightly hidden - a few desks on to the right. So if you proceed past reception, you get into the area with rooms. There is no restaurant at that end. Also, you are still one floor up from the pool.

 

I think you mean after you enter the hotel, proceed straight ahead, down the stairs to the coffee shop (where there is indeed a glass wall), and then through the glass doors to the pool area. At that point you do turn right and walk around the pool area till you come to the exit into the open air car park.

 

The shrine is certainly not easy to find unless you know exactly where it is. I’ll try and post a small directions map later.

[Guest fountainhall]

Here's a simple map showing how to reach the shrine from the hotel entrance. Once inside, you have to go down the large flight of stairs to the garden level. Go through the glass doors and follow the arrows.

 

 

The hotel entrance is at the top of Witthayu. But you do not need to access the shrine by going through the hotel. You can access it directly from Ploenchit and the soi parallel to Witthayu that runs alongside the side entrance to Central Chidlom Department Store (the one that goes past the Store car park and then the side entrance to the lifts and the food hall). There is a small klong on your right. Keep going up that soi and you will eventually see the hotel car park entrance near the end of the soi. Cross over the little bridge on your right (see 'Exit To Soi' on the map) and then turn left. The shrine is just there.

[ceejay]

Of course, you're right about the layout of the hotel FH.I'd only been there once, a couple of years ago, and I can't always remember what I had for breakfast these days.....

That's very useful information you have published there. I've never before seen directions on how to get to the shrine without going through the hotel, and you'd never find that route in a month of Sundays without some help.

[kokopelli]

I must have a perverted mind. When I saw the diagram above all I could think of was; penis, bladder, prostate, vas deferens, uretha , etc. and lots of sperm finding there way to their final destination.

[Guest fountainhall]

you'd never find that route in a month of Sundays without some help.

Even finding it from the hotel garden without directions is far from easy. I have a client in the hotel's office tower and so have been there many times, often scouring the garden trying to find the shrine and failing. Then quite recently and quite by accident I happened upon it as I was walking through the carpark to get to the soi leading to Central Chidlom!

 

Now if I only had thought more about it, I could have drawn a map much more in keeping with koko's "perverted thoughts" - and indeed, much more in keeping with the title of the thread. But at least it all comes out nicely in the end

[KhorTose]

I must have a perverted mind. When I saw the diagram above all I could think of was; penis, bladder, prostate, vas deferens, uretha , etc. and lots of sperm finding there way to their final destination.

 

:) :D :)

 

FH, I too wish to thank you for the directions. Looks like a good picture opportunity.

[ChristianPFC]

It is much easier to access from the back entrance of the hotel, where "exit to soi" is written on the map.

 

For a report from my visit there see http://gaybuttonthai.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4268&p=42452

[Guest]

I must have a perverted mind. When I saw the diagram above all I could think of was; penis, bladder, prostate, vas deferens, uretha , etc. and lots of sperm finding there way to their final destination.

I had similar thoughts. Also, my idea of a BKK penis shrine is Soi Duangthawee.

[Guest thaiworthy]

Also, my idea of a BKK penis shrine is Soi Duangthawee.

 

Z, your avatars are a penis shrine.