The queue at Thipsamai was so insanely long that i knew it would be a while before we could even enter; hence, i left my two willing friends in the queue while i checked out the surrounding, and found an imposing, red structure at the end of the street.
I have seen it before in my research for things to do in Bangkok and knew this is the interesting Giant Swing! Standing at 21-meter tall, the Giant Swing was used for a religious ceremony and its history can be traced back to 1784!
Quite a number of seasoned photographers were on site to take pictures of the Giant Swing against the backdrop of a beautiful sunset and i found out today that the historical structure was actually only re-opened for the public recently after a 300-day renovation.
With a history spanning over 200 years, it's understandable that the wooden beams are unable to withstand the usage (from the ceremonies) and the weather elements; hence, it has been re-constructed a few times, with the most recent one taking place in 2006.
So how does the ceremony work since no swing was suspended from the top beam? It involved suspending a bag of coins with Thai men swinging on a platform to grab it with their teeth! Sadly, the ceremony was discontinued since 1935 due to a number of deaths!
Can't visualize how the swing works?
Check out the picture, taken in 1919, located here.
One of my favourite photos for this recent trip to Bangkok. The only problem is that the resolution isn't fantastic given that i am using iPhone XR which is honestly a drop in photographic quality compared to the older iPhone 7 plus, which i was previously using. :(
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