Wat Si Saket

Wat Si Saket was built in 1818 in a Siamese rather than a Lao style, and that detail is generally given as the reason it survived the sacking of the city ten years later while almost everything else did not. The cloister that runs around the ordination hall is the point: its inner walls are pierced with small niches holding thousands of silver and ceramic Buddha images, with larger figures ranged on shelves below them, many of them damaged and gathered here afterwards.

What you actually see

• The cloister niches - small paired images set into the walls in their thousands.
• The shelved figures - larger Buddhas along the base of the walls, many broken or burned.
• The ordination hall - a dim interior with faded murals and a five-tiered roof.
• The wooden library - a small Burmese-influenced building in the compound, no longer holding its manuscripts.

When to go

November to February is the comfortable season. Early morning is quietest and the cloister light is best before the sun is high. The compound is small and can feel crowded when a tour group arrives.

Honest expectations

Counts of the images vary widely between sources and none of them should be taken as exact. The interior is dark and the murals are in poor condition. This is a quiet, slightly melancholy site rather than a spectacular one, and visits are short.

Nearby

Haw Phra Kaew is directly across the road, and the riverfront is a ten-minute walk.