The Bodhi Tree of Wat Phra Kaew

Inside the single most photographed temple complex in Thailand grows a tree that gets photographed by almost nobody. King Rama IV had a Bodhi tree planted beside the Prasat Phra Thep Bidon in 1864, grown from a shoot cut from the tree at Bodh Gaya where the historical Buddha reached enlightenment. In 1903, fire tore through the building it shades, destroying the original gilt stupa and part of the structure; the tree, already thirty-nine years old, stood close enough to watch and kept standing while King Rama VI rebuilt what became the Royal Pantheon of the Chakri dynasty. That pantheon now holds statues of the dynasty's kings and opens to the public exactly one day a year, Chakri Memorial Day, April 6th, from eight until noon. The tree faces no such restriction. It grows in the section of Wat Phra Kaew that every visitor to the Grand Palace already walks through on the way to the Emerald Buddha, sharing ground with the complex's gilded chedis and mythological guardian statues, and drawing none of their attention. At 162 years old it is younger than most of the buildings around it, proof that even Thailand's most sacred royal compound has kept adding, burning and rebuilding since 1782, not stood frozen at its founding.