Wat Hong Thong, temple in the sea

Wat Hong Thong

Apart from revelations about all kinds of relationship problems, you often read things on Thailandblog that make you think. Gringo once wrote that he turned his life around by doing something once a week that he hadn't done before. That is heartbreaking to me.

I always have a list of things to do. These can be things that come up in a conversation. The Bangkok Post also often provides inspiration, but of course also Thailandblog.

The same Gringo wrote about an imposing one more than a year ago temple in the sea. I immediately searched Google Earth for how to get there. I didn't find it immediately and apparently it got forgotten, except that it ended up on my list. After a year the same article was repeated and a good friend drew my attention to the possibility of an excursion. We just had to go take a look. Only I had the problem with Google Earth. Coincidentally I saw Gringo a few days later and he provided a good map.

We'll deal with the weather. Just one shower. It starts when we leave Pattaya and ends when we enter Pattaya again. We drive north via the Sukhumvit. In hindsight we should have taken the ring road around Chonburi, but we don't. After Chonburi the road bends west towards Bangkok. We take the exit to Samut Prakan and keep following that road until we see signs for Wat Hong Thong. We're looking for that temple. A concrete road with many ninety-degree angles takes us through large mud fields to the first temple building. The road around it is tiled and now slippery due to the rain. Originally the temple was located on a large piece of land by the sea, but continuous erosion has meant that most of the buildings now lie in the sea.

Wat Hong Thong YuenSiuTien / Shutterstock.com

A covered pier takes us to the actual temple. On the roof a huge golden bell, within huge numbers of small bells, donated by people who seek happiness. Inside also a gigantic collection of Buddha statues, many murals and an option to exchange 20 Baht for 80 coins of 25 satang. They must be put in as many pots and luck will be yours. Huge gongs can be worked with terrible maces, but it is more fun to cause a buzzing sound by working the center with your hands at lightning speed. To our surprise we see a portrait of one of us on one of the walls. Elsewhere a curiously erotic sketch. You can go either way here.

Incidentally, we do not see any male monks. Only nuns dressed in white. You sometimes hear people say that all those temples are the same. That may apply to the home-garden-and-kitchen temples, but fortunately there are many special buildings that are worth a visit. The Wat Hong Thong is certainly one of them.

Address: Song Khlong, Bang Pakong District, Chachoengsao, Thailand

Map: https://goo.gl/maps/4tkynA89c8q