Chinese Temple, Hua Thanon

Chinese Temple, Hua Thanon

Guang Yu

Update January 2016, a new statue has replaced the 2012 statue.

Update 29th September, 2012, the new shrine has an opening ceremony today and looks really nice, well worth a visit.

 Update early January 2012 The 'old' temple has been broken down and is replaced with a new structure/building, still at the same location.

After my three monthly visit to Thai Immigration in Nathon today, I decided it would be a good opportunity to visit some temples I usually don't go to and which are located a bit further away from where I live.

First one on the agenda was the Chinese temple located in Hua Thanon. As already reported in earlier posts, there's a big Hainanese legacy on Samui.

This temple, run by the Hua Thanon Hainanese Temple Association, is a great sample of this legacy, as is actually all of Hua Thanon, with it's traditional Hainan style houses. More on Hua Thanon at a later time though, now it's time for it's temple.

Before I continue, something that makes me wonder, if this post will receive as much attention as my post about the Chinese Temple located in Maenam, which seems to be by far one of my most visited posts. Time will tell but an interesting observation to make and to follow.

Next to the entrance, at your left hand, is this big plaque, with Chinese characters on it and to be honest, I have no idea what it means, but it looked interesting!

Inside the temple, it's rather small and relatively quiet, since it's located directly at the ring road, so with it's doors open, noise from the road doesn't find it too difficult to enter.

This picture shows a view of the main altar.

This is inside the room where the main altar is located and shows the Chinese deities that are worshipped and look out over the altar.

Next to the entrance of the main altar room, is this scenic display, with a typical bell and drum. Other Chinese/Thai visitors present during my visit used both of them.

On the ceiling one can find some intricate lampoon style lights.

As an amateur Buddha amulet collector, I couldn't resist buying an amulet here. They had a few on display and the one ended up choosing was the last one available. They had about 15 different amulets for sale, one costing 25.000,-THB since it was made of 18K gold, cheaper ones, which still went for about 9.000,-THB were made of pink gold. I went for a copy that went for 'only' 580,-THB instead and for the first time ever, also received a numbered receipt for my purchase, which I liked very much.

Next door to this Chinese Temple, is very conveniently, a Chinese/Thai restaurant (which I haven't tried yet!), so when on a trip around the island, a nice place to stop, eat some local food and make some pictures from the temple and the very typical Hainan, and therefor also typical Samui houses in Hua Thanon. In my opinion, Hua Thanon has the most typical original style houses in all of Samui that reminds of the old days of Samui.

All in all, well worth a visit.

Camille