Wat Phra That Choeng Chum

Wat Phra That Choeng Chum in central Sakon Nakhon is layered in a way that is visible if you know to look. The white chedi standing about twenty-four metres is Lao in style, built in the seventeenth century - but it was constructed around and over an eleventh-century Khmer laterite prang, which still stands inside it and can be seen through a doorway in the viharn attached to the front, with a Khmer lintel above the opening. The name means the chedi of the gathering of footprints, referring to a tradition that four Buddhas of this era each left a footprint at this site, and stone footprint slabs are enshrined inside. The chedi appears on the ten-satang coin, and the hall beside it houses Luang Pho Ong Saen, a sacred Buddha image of the province. It is the principal temple of Sakon Nakhon and the focus of the province's wax castle procession at the end of Buddhist Lent in October. It sits by Nong Han, the large lake the town is built beside. Free, small and takes an hour.

What's there

• The layered structure - a seventeenth-century Lao chedi built over an eleventh-century Khmer prang.
• The inner prang - visible through a doorway from the attached viharn.
• The footprint tradition - the four Buddha footprints the name refers to.
• The lakeside setting - beside Nong Han in the town centre.

When to go

November to February; the wax castle festival at the end of Lent in October is the temple's biggest event. An hour covers it.

Practical notes

The inner Khmer prang is glimpsed through a doorway rather than entered. The hall is dim. Free with donation boxes. Little English interpretation. Small - an hour is enough.

Nearby

Nong Han lake is alongside; Wat Tham Pha Daen is south-west and Phu Phan south.

Key facts