Wat Paknam Phasi Charoen

Wat Paknam is an old temple - Ayutthaya period - but everything visitors come for is recent. The Maharatchamongkhon pagoda, completed in 2012, is a white five-storey tower whose top floor holds a stupa of emerald-green glass about eight metres tall, standing under a domed ceiling painted with a night sky and Buddhist cosmology; the effect is theatrical and unlike anything else in Bangkok, and it made the temple a fixture on social media. Beside it, a seated bronze Buddha of around sixty-nine metres, Phra Buddha Dhammakaya Thepmongkol, was completed in 2021 and is visible across a large part of Thonburi. The temple is also the origin of the Dhammakaya meditation tradition, taught here by Luang Pu Sodh in the 1910s, from which the much larger and more controversial Dhammakaya movement later separated. Entry is free. Dress code is enforced and shoulders and knees must be covered.

What you actually see

• The green glass stupa - eight metres, under a painted cosmological dome.
• The bronze Buddha - about sixty-nine metres, completed in 2021.
• The pagoda floors - a museum and relics on the levels below the stupa.
• The Dhammakaya origin - the meditation tradition taught here from the 1910s.

When to go

November to February. Mornings are quietest; the glass hall gets crowded with photographers through the day. Free, but dress code is enforced at the door.

Honest expectations

The famous features are modern - 2012 and 2021 - rather than historic. The glass hall is small and busy with people photographing. Shoulders and knees must be covered; wraps are lent at the entrance. It is a working temple with services.

Nearby

Wat Arun and the river are north-east; central Bangkok is across the river.