Pattaya Temple Wat Khao Sao Tung Torng
This Temple is heading out of Pattaya towards Jomtien, turn off at Sukhumvit Soi 87 and follow the road till you see a big mountain on your left, most mountains in Thailand have Buddhist Temples on top and they all look pretty much the same so it doesn't really matter if you get lost or go to a different one, Buddha will forgive you, anyway as you can see from the pictures it is out in the wild countryside of Pattaya, there really weren't a lot around here apart from cassava fields.
Anyway the only reason I stopped here was they had a stairway leading up the mountain, now to spend all that time and money building a massive stairway up the side of the mountain from the monastery means there has to be something pretty smart up there, and this Temple did look quite wealthy, so I got to admit my expectations were high, the lowest I expected was some massive Buddha statues covered in gold leaf, alas I was wrong.
The Temple is set out over quite a large area so me being lazy just drove round it first time to get the pictures, all the buildings were locked, not a monk to be seen anywhere, God knows where they had all gone as it was about 1pm, they seem to like chickens as they had loads of them all over the place, personally I would be a bit concerned about bird flu if I was a monk living there.
The main building for the parties and that sort of stuff.
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Quite a nice entrance but the gate was locked, must be a lot of theft in this area.
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Something like this would help make any bland terraced house in Manchester stand out a bit and make the neighbors jealous.
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The band stand where the drums and that are kept.
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The big bass drum.
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Pattaya Temple Wat Khao Sao Tung Torng
This is quite a nice BBQ area, lots of room to invite friends over for your funeral.
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The old band stand with the old drum, notice in the first post the new one is a multi story affair, must have come into some money.
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The Monks living accommodation, you can see that it must be washing day as they all have robes outside hanging out to dry, don't look too bad though does it, if it wasn't for that getting up at 6am and having your head shaved it could probably be quite a good life being a monk, well plus the no sex and no booze bit is a bit strict I suppose.
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If your thinking of donating orange buckets to the Monks please think again, they have tonnes of the bloody things.
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The start of the stairs leading up the mountain.
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Pattaya Temple Wat Khao Sao Tung Torng
About a third of the way up those stairs and I was getting a bit out of breath, the steps sloped downwards and were all different sizes so it was pretty hard going, but was it going to be worth it?
Here is a shrine that was on the way up those steps, still had a long way to go though.
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Damn I made it, look at that view, who would believe that that was Pattaya down below, now climbing this sort of distance you would expect something on par with Doi Suthep or Wat Arun, so lets start exploring.
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The very first thing you come across is this old bell hanging from a tree.
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Then another small shrine, I was tempted to borrow a bit of the drinking water as I was a bit thirsty by now.
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So what else was there I hear you ask after your trek up the mountain.
Bloody nothing...................................
