Wat Pho, Bangkok

Wat Pho lies immediately south of the Grand Palace and is older than the city around it. Its centrepiece is the Reclining Buddha: forty-six metres long and fifteen high, brick and plaster under gold leaf, shown at the moment of entering nirvana. The hall was built around the figure, so it is glimpsed in sections rather than seen whole - the soles of the feet, inlaid with mother-of-pearl in 108 auspicious signs, are at the far end.

The temple is also the traditional home of Thai massage. In the early nineteenth century Rama III had the medical and therapeutic knowledge of the day inscribed on stone tablets set into the walls here, effectively creating Thailand's first public university; the school on the grounds still teaches it.

The rest of the compound is quieter than the Grand Palace and rewards wandering - four large chedis for the first four Chakri kings, and a scatter of Chinese stone figures that arrived as ballast in nineteenth-century trading ships. Tha Tien pier, immediately behind, is the crossing point for Wat Arun.