wat Muang: The most surreal temple in Thailand

For: Daniel Landa (Text and photos)
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A giant Buddha barged between rice paddies. Nothing announced that disproportion, nothing seemed to explain why it emerged precisely there, a golden figure 92 meters high. In the shadow of the Buddha work daily farmers in the province of Ang Thong, overwhelmed by the dimensions of one of the 10 largest statues in the world.

The figure is part of the most delusional temple of Thai Buddhism. Everything is surreal in the sacred precinct of Wat Muang. An articulated skeleton gives entry to visitors. One feels between awkward and curious, before even entering the crystal temple.

The walls and ceiling are covered with mirrors that multiply the already baroque decorations. We attend prayers where monks bow between images of other monks carved from bronze, pride of buddhism in thailand.

Visitors can get closer to it, observe her gesture of unflappable calm, because in fact he's been dead since 1996.

Wat Muang began to be built in 1990 on the ruins of another temple. The work concluded in 2008, almost two decades later, but the founder of the monastery, a monk named Luang Pho Kasem is still in the compound. Visitors can get closer to it, observe her gesture of unflappable calm, because in fact he's been dead since 1996, but his body remains in a display case, mummified.

I went out to breathe for a while, but either Mr.Pho Kasem had a rather creepy side, where himself, mummified, represents the best example, or - and I am inclined to think the latter- possessed a marked sense of black humor. The fact is that the exterior of the enclosure is full of figures that represent the torture to which those condemned to hell will be subjected. The statues have been created on a human scale, to give more realism to the death that awaits us sinners. Severed heads, spears through bodies, rabid dogs, Saws and other punishments are part of the so-called Garden of Hell. This monument to ugliness is topped by two figures that rise about twenty meters. A skeletal man and woman, with bulging eyes and a disengaged tongue.

from Wat Muang you can only walk away contrite, without talking much, without raising your voice, tilting your head a little

Many schoolchildren walked perplexed among the figures, trying to assimilate those bloody gestures, that brutal museum, under the profile of an omnipresent Buddha.

In addition to the torture room, paradise is also represented. But I was seduced much less than I was horrified by hell. In short, from Wat Muang you can only walk away contrite, without talking much, without raising your voice, tilting your head a little, so as not to offend the deceased monks to the inexorable presence of Buddha.

This is perhaps the most severe part of a religion that, to be fair, usually shows a friendly demeanor. We left Wat Muang eager to get lost in the northern mountains.

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