We recently got shown around a Thai temple that’s currently under construction and were amused to see some of the images that were there. Thai people certainly have a sense of humor and don’t seem to take life as seriously as many in the West do. So what was so amusing about this temple? Churches and temples in the West always seem to be very serious places, but in Thailand temples are often fun places to visit. This temple had an image of Donald Duck, a panda sticking its tongue out, and many other weird images that you wouldn’t normally associated with a Buddhist temple. There are plenty more weird and quirky temples we visited but this one is the most fun. Click here to book a great hotel in Bangkok via Agoda.
The construction of this temple started 7 years ago and is expected to take around 20 years to complete. Nearly all the decoration is made from small pieces of smashed Chinese tea cups, so the work is very intricate and time-consuming.
Once the tea cups are smashed into small pieces they are stored in bottles for use by the workers.
Just to give you an idea of how time-consuming this work is, take a look at the image below. This guy has spent four months working on this dragon image and expects to take another month or so to complete it.
This dragon sculpture is just one of many that are required for the buildings under construction, so you can start to see why this is a 20-year project.
The above image gives you a good idea of the scale of the temple complex. There are two main temple buildings with an outer ring of smaller buildings around it.
The main temple building looks around 60-70% complete, but still has people working on both the inside and outside of the building.
These two workers have a very long job ahead of them – only around 13 years work left to do.
Nearly all the images at this temple are very intricate 3D works of art. You can tell by looking at the completed sections that this wil be a truly stunning temple once construction is complete.
This new temple complex is opposite the David Beckham Temple building. See that article for details of how to get here by public transport.
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