Wat Phra Boromathat Chaiya

Wat Phra Boromathat Chaiya Rat Worawihan (วัดพระบรมธาตุไชยาราชวรวิหาร) is the most important Buddhist temple of Surat Thani, and also one of the most beautiful ones. The central chedi in Srivijaya style with its many golden ornaments is even the iconic symbol of the province Surat Thani.

The reason why the main temple of the province is not located in the provincial capital lies in the history of the province. In fact, the temple was originally in the capital of the Mueang Chaiya, one of the semi-independent city-states which made up Siam until the administrative system was completely overhauled at the begin of the 20th century. Though by then the town Chaiya was moved closer to the sea to present-day Phum Riang - it came back to its original location after the railway was built in 1915. However, by then the province Surat Thani was established by merging the area formerly under Chaiya with the one under Kanchanadit, and the new center of the province was at the mouth of the Tapi river in Ban Don.

Every side of the chedi shows a different ornament, though I don't know much about the actual meaning. Pointing north is a peacock, to the south is Erawan as the multi-headed elephant, to the east a Buddha surrounded by regalia which reminded me of the old coat of arms of Siam. The one on the west side I could not recognize at all. The chedi is surrounded by a walkway with lots of Buddha statues, and several smaller chedis, elephant and other statues, as well as nice small trees. If only it were not so hot and sunny, which made walking around on the hot plaster barefooted far from comfortable.

Much less spectacular than the chedi is the bot, though religiously it is the more important building. Inside are just several smaller Buddha statues, and no murals at the walls.

The three Buddha statues outside next to the Bot are also notable. Normally Buddha statues are always under a roof protected from the elements, however these three are believed to prefer to stay outside - when they were placed under a roof in past, lightning struck and destroyed the building. I don't know if and when this story actually took place, but it sounds like a perfectly fit explanation for these statue's location.

Directly at the temple is also a local branch of the National Museum, which has several items from the Srivijaya times on display. Sadly not allowing photography I did skip the revisit and focused on taking photos of the temple instead. Since I did quite a lot of photos, like the views of the chedi from all four sides, I uploaded the whole collection to flickr.

Read More

Phum Riang silk village

Phum Riang in Chaiya district, northern Surat Thani province, is a small Muslim fishing town, which however is famous for the hand-woven silk products. Like many me, shopping for handicrafts, especially textiles, isn't my favorite kind of activity, but when we went to the main shop in the town last time after a short look around my mother-in-law led to the back exit of the shop right into the working area of the weavers.

Since it was on the day after Songkhran, only very few workers were there, so I could look around without worrying to disturb them by my curious looks, photography or by simply standing in the way. Still I could see the dyeing of the silk, the rolling-up of the freshly dyed silk, as well as one loom in action weaving some clothes. Yet since it was very tightly packed in there it was not easy to catch the loom on photo.

As we had to travel there on Songkhran - in evening my mother-in-law had her annual school reunion nearby - and therefore the main street was full of the youth playing with water, thus I did not dare to stroll around the town for other sights to keep my camera dry. Which is actually a pity as Phum Riang is quite a significant town despite its present remoteness. Phum Riang was the seat of the province Chaiya, before it was merged with Kanchanadit in 1899 and the seat was moved to Bandon, the present day city of Surat Thani. When the railway was built, the new settlement Talat Chaiya was built. I am not sure which year the district administration moved from Phum Riang to Talat Chaiya, but today the only office left in Phum Riang is the municipality administration.

I doubt any of the old administrative buildings still survive after about 100 years, but at least the historical temples still are on my list of places to visit when I return there next time.

Read More

Wat Phonimit, Surat Thani

The temples within the city Surat Thani did not impress me that much, there are neither really historical ones - maybe except the one building of Wat Pattanaram - nor as lavishly decorated. Slighly outside the city center however is one temple which is worth a short visit just to admire the architecture and handicraft necessary to create it. Of course compared with the temples in Bangkok it is just a normal one, yet for Surat Thani city it is apparently the most interesting one.

Named Wat Phonimit (วัดโพธิ์นิมิต), the temple is located on the road towards Kanchanadit, about 4 kilometer from the city center. I went there together with family, and while they attended a ceremony in the Sala I was free to stroll around in the temple complex and took lots of photos.

The main building is of course the Ubosot, most lavishly decorated and with a small fence around it. The gate inside as well as lion statues, and of course the gable of the building made great photo locations. Note the wasp nest glued on the gable in one side. Sadly the building was locked, so I could not get a view on the Buddha statue inside, or see if it has any interesting murals on the walls inside.

Interesting were also several statues located around a tree, the hermits in behind I could recognize, yet I don't know about the symbolism of the other figures. Also, several smaller chapels and Salas are spread over the compound, for example the one housing three monk statues.

Separated from the main compound by the street towards Rama IX park is the crematorium and the graveyard - the small chedis house urns of the deceased.

Since I could not add all the photos here I have created a set on Flickr, and when I have the chance to add more photos of the place I will put them there as well.

Read More

Wat Khao Suwan Pradit, Don Sak

Most tourists only know Don Sak, the easternmost district of Surat Thani province, only because the main ferry from the mainland to Ko Samui leaves near this small town. Though it is not that spectacular, a stop-over in the town is a worth it, not just the sea food restaurant directly at the mouth of the small river into the sea. On the hill overlooking the town is the temple Khao Suwan Pradit (วัดเขาสุวรรณประดิษฐ์) - literally the "hill of artifical gold".

The buildings at the entrance, the area usually used for parking the park, are not much spectacular, the only interesting was a smaller shrine with the mummy of a monk inside. I guess this is Luang Pho Choi (หลวงปู่จ้อย), who founded the temple in 1982. To me it seemed quite strange to have him laid out in that glass shrine.

But the much more interesting place is reached after walking up the long stairs. These lead to the hilltop pagoda, a beautiful white chedi surrounded by a building. This chedi enshrines a Buddha relic, originally from Chiang Mai. But for me as a non-Buddhist, apart from the beautiful building the view from the hill to the sea was much more breathtaking. One can see the Ang Thong archipelago and Ko Samui easily, as well as look down to the town center.

As this temple and especially the chedi is the most important landmark of Don Sak, it is no wonder the municipality Don Sak (เทศบาลตำบลดอนสัก) uses it in their official emblem. Quite nicely to see in the top of the street signs, like the one of the road from the town center to the temple.

Read More

Surat Thani night market

When I checked through my photos from last year I noticed the one to he right as a quite good one I simply needed to share. It shows the temple Wat Sai (วัดไทร) located in the center of the town Surat Thani. But - actually apart from this view the temple isn't anything special, the large open place is often used as a parking lot, and I haven't been able to check the inside of the bot if it has any special murals or Buddha statues.

So in order to be able to show this photo, I instead write on the night market of Surat Thani, which is held every evening in the small side street in front of the temple. Like all markets it is always busy, and since it has predominately food stalls offering meals as well as diverse snacks every time I am in the town we go there at least once, usually having Pad Thai at the corner to Na Mueang road. Also the book store from where I shot the night view belongs to a distant relative, so we always have to pass there as well to say hello.

It is of course only a small night market, just 200 meter long, nothing compared with the huge one in Chiang Mai, but on the other hand it is much more authentic as there are hardly any foreigners to be seen there.

For some additional photos, take a look at Camille's review of this market on his Samui info and weather blog.

Read More

Wat Kaew, Chaiya

The most important historical building in Surat Thani province is Wat Borom That Chaiya with the chedi in Srivijaya style. Next to the temple is the local branch of the national museum, so when I visited this place several years ago I did not omit the museum. But these two locations are still found in guide books, and there's even talk about it being part of a World Heritage site to be proposed to UNESCO soon.

However these two should not be topic this time, but two minor sites nearby. While walking through the museum I noticed a map of the surroundings of the main site marking the location of two other temples, named Wat Long and Wat Kaeo (วัดแก้ว). So I asked to go to these as well, and it turned out that in fact I had to guide since noone of family knew the way to go there. When I succeeded thanks to memorizing the map well I could impress my mother in law a lot, who is a native of Chaiya but never knew these places.

The first one, Wat Long, isn't that impressive, as only the foundations of the chedi have been preserved, surrounded by a small pond, and found directly next to the road. The top photo might give an idea on how it looks like.

A little further driving comes the second site, which is more impressive since a much larger part of the chedi is preserved, though one can see the weathering of the centuries well. In the niche, the black hole in the above photo, is a Buddha statue. If these two chedi ruins are in fact those referred to in the Thai inscription #23 as labeled by Prince Damrong in his Collected Inscriptions of Siam, then they are more than 1200 years old.

Though I have been in Chaiya again, I haven't been able yet to revisit these sites, which is really a pity as I am quite dissatisfied with the quality of the photos. Redoing them with my digital SLR should give much more presentable photos, and also more than those few I did back in 2003. Hopefully in next trip.

Read More

Wat Tham Singkhon

Wat Tham Singkhon (วัดถ้ำสิงขร) is an ancient temple in Surat Thani Province, in Khiri Rat Nikhom district directly at the Phum Duang river. I had found it listed as one of the attractions of the province, but since all which I could find was in Thai I didn't know much of what would be waiting for me there. I also only saw photos of the dark chedi in Srivijaya style, and I did not realize that the name of the temple actually already gives a hint of what more there is to see - Tham (ถ้ำ) means cave.

After entering the ancient compound through a wooden roofed bridge the first one to see is the set of Buddha statues under an overhang, all the seven days with their specific gesture. Walking up on the cliff one shortly thereafter reaches the above-mentioned chedi, which is located opposite the cave entrance.

Further Buddha statues are located at the entrance, including one large black sitting Buddha. It already got quite difficult to take a photo of these, since they are located in the twilight, and I did not bring a photo tripod. I only succeeded but placing the camera on the rocks on the opposite side of the cave. As it was even more dark inside, only very few photos turned out without blur, which is a pity as there are several further nice views.

The cave is not such the large overhang opposite the chedi, but it continues quite long inside. A bit sparsely illuminated at parts, it is nevertheless easy to go inside as there are concrete steps on the way up into the cave. In a first hall it has several Buddha statues in a row, later another statue on top of a wall which looks like a waterfall from the speleothem covering it. Since it was dry season there was no water on it, but the monk who guided us through confirmed that in the raining season the small pools in this formation is actually filled with water.

At other places inside the cave bats are resting for the day hanging from the roof, one place is known to be the resting place of tigers in the past, and another large hall was used by the monk as a meeting hall. Finally the way ends nearly on top of the cliff, where the roof of the cave has collapsed and allows the daylight to stream in.

As the monk who was our guide only spoke Thai I could not get much of the many things he explained, but even then the natural beauty of the cave mixed with the religious items and the small details like the stucco decorations make it a visit definitely worth the on hour drive from Surat Thani city.

Read More

Monkey school in Surat Thani

As I am often going to Surat Thani, I checked out most of the places mentioned in the guidebooks already. One of these places was the monkey school of Somporn Saekow, located in Kanchanadit district not far from the city of Surat Thani.

However when I went there in 2003, I sadly learned that Somporn passed away half year earlier, and a cousin had just started to take over the school then. But as she did not speak English, the daughter of Somporn did some of the explanations. Though it was of course still very interesting to see how the monkeys get taught, from what I read later the presentations of Somporn had even more charm. And after I even found an English book in Bangkok on him, and an obituary in an Australian newspaper I also wrote him a Wikipedia article.

But it was not just these presentations which made this school special, it was the whole teaching philosophy. Teaching monkeys to harvest coconuts is an old technique, but Somporn did not like the way the monkeys are forced to do their work. So he developed his unique style in which the monkeys learn by playing in very easy steps. First the learn to accept a coconut as a toy, then to turn it, then to turn one hanging a meter above the floor. Once they succeed with this, such a coconut is loosely fixed on a tree and they have to climb up to make it fall down. And then finally the are ready to do this to real coconuts just getting ripe on the tree.

The whole course takes about half year. As catching the monkeys - Pig-tailed macaques - is illegal, but holding them in captivity is not, Somporn only teached monkeys farmers send to him as students, and returned them after they finished their course.

As my visit was in 2003 and the school just recovered from the death of the founder, I don't know if this school is still open today. But there are in fact still lots of so-called travel guide website which advertise Somporns school as a local attraction without mentioning anything about the fact that Somporn is not running it anymore - and even in a guide book I checked in the bookstore yesterday it still names Somporn, even though it was published in 2007.

Update: The school is still operating, and now also has a website.

Read More

Khlongs near Surat Thani

When we looked for some information for our trip to Khao Sok at the Tourism Authority office in Surat Thani, I picked one brochure which advertised an Eco-Tour through the canals in the delta of the Tapi river. Though it was in Thai, I could notice that one stop would be at an old temple, and I simply love temple ruins. Sadly I lost that brochure later on.

So on our next trip to Surat Thani, I suggested to check out the TAT office again to do that trip. Strangely neither the clerk there knew about this tour, nor did it have that brochure anymore. It however had two other offers of a boat tour, and we then did one of that. While it had no temple ruins, it was nevertheless fun and interesting. I now suspect that the old temple was in fact at Khao Phra Anon (เขาพระอานนท์) in neighboring Phunphin district, so this would have been a much longer tour than the one we did.

The day we did the trip it was quite cloudy with a thunderstorm lingering, but it stayed dry during the whole trip taking about 2 hours. The clouds had the advantage that it was not that hot, however within the canals it was so dark that most of my photos got blurred - the boat moving to fast with the longer exposure needed. So sadly no photo of the nipa palms which grow along the canals.

The tour started at the river bank opposite Ko Lamphu, and the first stop was at a river house selling community products. Though this was advertised in the brochure as an OTOP (One Tambon One Product) shop, and also the boat driver called it OTOP, the sign inside does call it simply "Community Manufacturing Product" (ศูนย์ผลิตภัณฑ์ชุมชน). Though just few years old, OTOP has become the synonym for any locally marketed products.

The shop was still at a major river branch, after that it went into the narrow canals. To make sure one does not loose the orientation, there are even "road signs" at each of the intersections. Not sure if these signs are only put in the area close to the town, or if all the canals within the delta have such signs. The canals are usually bordered with palms, which at some parts get so dense that it's rather dark in the narrow canal. Along the tour there were several other attractions, though we did not stop at any.

At first we passed the temple Wat Bang Bai Mai, the central temple of the subdistrict with the same name. We did not stop there as it is not really a special temple, however I noticed on the map in the brochure that right next to the temple it has the office of the subdistrict administration, so I went there a few days later to take a photo of that office building, and of course also of the temple.

Another attraction is a wooden house more than 100 years old, titled "บ้านโบราณ" (Ban Boran), which however passing from the canal did not look anything impressive.

There was one final stop at a home where a vinegar was produced from the juice of the nipa palm, and it was planned to show the production of this. However we failed to find the farmer who would have showed his product, so we returned to the boat. The last part of the tour went past a settlement within the river, which looks quite different from so close than from the town at the other side of the river.

As I had my GPS tracking device with me, the map below shows exactly where we went, within the accuracy of GPS of course.


View Larger Map

Read More

Wat Pattanaram, Surat Thani

The city of Surat Thani itself has no real touristic attractions, especially when it comes to historical places. But as I come to that town almost every time I am in Thailand, I have looked around in the town a lot already. And temples are one of my favorite places to visit.

One of the temples located close to the center of the city is Wat Pattanaram (วัดพัฒนาราม) - just 500 meter away from the site of the night market. As it's also one of the temples closest to where we stay in Surat Thani, I have been there several times. However the most impressive visit there was when some years ago my brother in law spend a week as monk in there, and I was honored to attend the ceremony. Though I did not understand much of what was happening, it is a special memory related to this temple.

While the temple has its charm, it is not really impressive, and I did not know about it even having some historical significance - I wish my Thai would be better and I could read websites like the one of the Wildlife club of Surat Thani and learn more about it.

So it was just a coincidence I noticed about the significance. As part of my project to process the announcements in the Royal Gazette, I also downloaded the announcements on historical sites (เขตที่ดินโบราณสถาน) quite some time ago. But just now I started to take a look into it, and noticed that in December 2001 one of the buildings within Wat Pattanaram was declared such a protected historical site by the Fine Arts Department (Gazette). The building protected is not the largest, but the giants next to the entrance are something I haven't seen like that in other temples yet. And it was this building where the ordination of my brother in law took place.

That historical building clearly looks a bit weathered, much unlike the larger newer one next to it with the standard colorful pediment. Not sure which one is the Bot and which one the Viharn however. In between the two is a small roofed shrine, which is always busy with people praying and lighting incense or candles. But again I am sadly ignorant of what is the object of worship there.

Now I know more a little bit more about this temple, the next time I will be around I will take more photos and trying to find out more about it.

Read More

Rafflesia in Khao Sok

The Khao Sok national park (อุทยานแห่งชาติเขาสก) is not really a place I can call "unseen", as it is the most popular national park in southern Thailand. Given it's location not far from the touristic centers on Phuket or at Khao Lak, it is an easy target for day tours from these places for tourists tired of spending all day at the beach. But even though foreigners are nothing uncommon there, it is not overcrowded with them and still worth the visit.

The park is accessible in two parts. The first one is the Ratchaprapha dam, which created the Chiao Lan lake. Especially this dam is popular for Thai tourist, so I already went there twice, the first time doing a picnic there and then later do a boat trip over the lake to the fascinating cliffs partially submerged in the artificial lake. The second time we just did the boating, as the dam itself was already overcrowded with Thai people celebrating Songkhran (Thai New Year) there.

The second part around the visitor center of the park has several jungle trails, however I did not do any of those yet. This is because I most wanted to see the most peculiar flower of Thailand, the Rafflesia. It is a parasitic plant living within the roots of a tree, with only their buds and flowers being visible. While this is interesting already, the mere size of the flowers - reaching one meter in diameter - makes them really extraordinary. I wanted to see this flower in real ever since I first read about it, but either we had no time while we were in Surat Thani, or it had no flower in blooming then. So when we went to the visitor center and learned that there is a Rafflesia blooming, we quite quickly decided to go to that place instead of taking the trails.

The blooming was actually not within the park itself, but on private land slightly outside the park boundaries. The hiking began at the house of the rubber farmer who owns the land, and after a short walking through the rubber trees we entered the jungle already. I have no idea how far it really was, but it was quite tiring to walk uphill in the hot weather with just on bottle of water. But it was well worth it, as it was not just a single flower in full blooming, but it also had two older ones in various parts of decomposing, and also new buds which were about to bloom soon. So I could not only take close-up photos of this fascinating flower, but could get the whole development from bud to decomposing flower in one time. The only thing which lacked was the smell - normally Rafflesia has a smell of rotten meat to attract the flies to do the pollinating. But that one had almost no smell at all, but even without smell there were a few flies inside it. The full set of these photos I have uploaded to flickr.

Seeing the flower in real did only create more interest into these flowers, so I got myself the book "Rafflesia of the world" by Jamili Nais - the only online shop which has it for reasonable price was borneobooks. I learned a lot more about these plants from that book, so I am looking forward to see the new book mentioned in the Rafflesia blog.

Read More

Ban Tha Sathon hot spring

The Ban Tha Sathon hot spring (บ่อน้ำร้อนบ้านท่าสะท้อน) is located in Tha Sathon subdistrict, in the southeast of Phunphin district, Surat Thani province. When coming from Tha Kham (Phunphin) town, one has to take Thai highway 401 to the west, and then the 4448 going south. Some kilometers after crossing the railway one has to turn into a narrow side road to the right, and after some more kilometers turn into another one to the left. Don't worry, it has signs at these two intersections. The compound itself then cannot be missed anymore, one will see the above sign and then directly hit the parking lot.

Already visible from the road is the big pond, which seem to be quite popular for Thai children to do bathing. The water seems to be very clean, the whitish color probably comes from the minerals from the spring. Next to the pool is a building with the sanitary facilities, and as usual in Thailand there are food stalls next to the parking lot as well. The whole compound looks very new, which is probably the reason why I haven't been able to notice it in either Google Earth nor PointAsia yet. We only visited that spring while we were on the way to Khao Sok, so we had neither bathing suit with us nor enough time to check out the swimming ourself.

The pond is filled with water originating from the hot spring, which is encircled with a wooden walkway. Getting closer to the water there isn't recommendable, as it has a temperature of about 70° there. Quite odd to see even a little bit of steam on a sunny day with an air temperature of around 30°. Sadly my Thai is not good enough to get anything of the geological details of this spring from this website, but as there's no volcanism in that area the water must come from rather deep to get that hot.

Read More