Seen one too many temple in Thailand ? Are they all beginning to look the same ? feeling a bit "watted-out"? During a recent trip to the GF's family in Ubon we went on a family outing to Wat Lan Khuad in Khun Han, Si Saket....often called the Million Bottle Temple.

As soon as you enter the grounds you realise why it's called the million bottle temple


Every building is covered with bottles, from floor to roof.

As usual at this time of the year, the sky was rather drab and uninteresting so I remembered the "clouds database" story (http://www.stickmanweekly.com/Photo/10July/BKKSWPhoto98.html#outing) and turned this one into a nice sunny day with just a few wispy clouds.

It's not that far from Preah Vihar so if you were visiting there (when it's open!) the Million Bottle Temple (properly known as Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaeo, but everybody calls it Wat Lan Khuad) is an easy diversion.
GPS details : 14° 37'8.73", 104° 25'7.85"

Oh man, I was really laughing when looking at these pictures.. This is fun viewing! Do you know any of the history of this temple, like the "why" of it?

Well, the story is 3rd hand and possibly lost in translation, but my GF told me that her brother told her that one of the monks told him that about 20 years ago a monk had a dream about a spire made of glass and reaching up to the sky ....and then woke up and decided to build a temple of old bottles ?
but Google also tells me that :
"The bottle-collection-turned-building started in 1984, when the monks used them to decorate their shelters. The shiny building material attracted more people to donate more bottles, until eventually they had enough to build the temple standing today"

Some more pics :


Even the living quarters are made of bottles.

Even the bottle tops are recycled into the buildings at Wat Lan Khuad:







Steve, as soon as we drove into the grounds of Wat Lan Khuad I had to refrain from laughing at the sheer absurdity of building a holy place out of beer bottles !
The Million Bottle Temple ...... "Amazing Thailand", as TAT would say.
hopefully I can get back there when the photographic conditions are better ...midday of an overcast wet season day is not the best time for photos.

Thanks! This is really interesting.. as you know I get tired of the same ol' wat after wat after wat.. and love different wats. I'll add it to my list for my next trip north. I'm also going to start tagging my images with sat cords as soon as I can source a decent add-on I don't need to think about much..