Wat Plai Laem

Wat Plai Laem

Is the local Wat for me, it's around the corner of where I live on Koh Samui. It's a beautiful temple with some unusual deity figures.

About one month ago I wrote about a new statue of a sitting Buddha where they would insert a heart into, have a look here for a refresher

Well, the heart has been inserted by now and this is how it looks like now.

This is a look from that Buddha statue on the main building of temple, the Bot. It's beautifully decorated inside, with stories about Buddha's life painted on the walls and the ceiling.

Here's a sample of how unusual the statues of the deities at the temple are. This 14 armed deity looks more like it belongs in India than in Thailand. It's a spectacular statue though and together with the Bot well worth a visit once you're on Samui. Best thing is, it's free entrance but dress conservatively if you want to show respect to the local people.

The temples in Thailand are build by donations of the local people or people in general. In this particular temple one can see the progress on another main building that is under construction.

This picture is about about one year ago.

Here's the same building about half a year ago.

Here's the same building last week. It's a steady but slow progress. Once there's money, construction picks up and in times of no or little money, construction slows down accordingly.

As I mentioned before, this temple is well worthwhile visiting and together with Big Buddha, which is part of the same temple complex, the two best temples to visit on Samui, closely followed by the temple of the Mummified Monk, about which I will talk later.

Hope you enjoyed the pix,

Camille