Wat Kwuad

Various colored bottles and many kinds of bottles are brought to decorate the wall, the sermon hall, Thai Chedi and even restrooms as well as monk’s house which is considered as the second outstanding architecture of Thailand, and here is “WatKwuad (The Temple of Bottles)” located at Chana of Songkla Province.Temple is the place for religious ceremony of Buddhists. Inside the temple are monk’s house which is the accommodation for priests who are called monk according to Buddhism, as well as, Chedi, Ubosot(the ordaination hall), the sermon hall, the crematory. They are for religious ceremony such as walking with lighted candles in hand around a temple, praying, meditation. Beautiful decoration of these buildings that we as Buddhists familiar with is Kranok pattern; however, at “the Temple of Bottles”at Baan Klong Han, Baan Kea Subdistrict, Chana of Songkla Province of which architecture is not lesser beautiful than that of other temples that all of buildings decorated with bottles.”The Temple of Bottles” or KokSakDhamma retreats is another tourist attraction of Songkla Province with outstanding architecture, since all of the buildings in the temple are decorated with bottles. It is regarded from Taiwan newspaper and press that it is the biggest building made from recycled stuff; however, nowadays, the temple becomes less popular and a number of tourists is continually decreasing as the turmoil in the border provinces of the southern region of Thailand from 2547 B.E. since then, together with Sunthornthammasiriprovest or monk Kamsai who is the temple founder died resulting in decadence of the temple and especially tourists from Malaysia and Singapore love to travel here disappear.Being afraid of losing exquisite architecture of the temple which can be seen at 2 places in Thailand; that is, Sri Sakes Province and Chana of Songkla Province, “Travel to the southern of Thailand” presents the story of this temple because they do not want beautiful and creative architecture of the temple to be forgotten and disappeared.SoponVinaikarn Provost, the abbot of the temple of bottles said that in the old days the temple was the crematory for monks in Koksakclergy, by having Kong monk as leader. Later, Kong provost invited Sunthornthammasiri provost or Kamsai monk whopilgrimaged from Sri Sakes Province to stay at the temple. He saw “the temple of millions of bottles” at Sri Sakes Province, so he got the idea to bring left bottles to build the temple. It was built since 2520 B.E.; however, it became famous in 2536 B.E. A lot of bottles including liquor bottle, beer bottles, energy drink bottles were dominated for making the temple. Those recycled bottles do not only help save money but also represent moral teaching about extravagance of human beings wasting their money on useless things. Sunthornthammasiri provost built the temple as the memorial monument that helps people to recognize people in later generation to not be suppressed by alcohol and drugs.