Wat Pan Tao is not one of Chiang Mai’s most famous wats but this small temple with its very attractive teak viharn is well worth a peek.
Conveniently located next door to prestigious Wat Chedi Luang, Wat Pan Tao was originally built as an ancillary temple to the royal temple next door, thus having a similar late 14th century date to it, making it one of the oldest sites still standing today in Chiang Mai city.
Photogenic. Photo: Mark Ord
The delightful teak viharn itself was constructed at the end of the 19th century out of recycled wood from the nearby royal palace. A new king coming to the throne generally preferred to build his own palace, so predecessors’ ones were frequently dismantled, leaving a lot of spare teak lying around.
The small temple grounds are free of monk chats, massages, touts, coffee shops and souvenir stalls, but do have a very attractive, albeit tiny, garden that the monks have obviously put a lot of work into. A raised bamboo walkway, lined with flags and bells, leads you down one side of the grounds affording views over to the teak hall.
Not your typical temple. Photo: Mark Ord
There’s a famous peacock carving over the main door and a large seated Buddha image in the viharn. What we found most interesting, and photogenic, were some of the temple accessories, so to speak, scattered around the edge of the complex: the attractive old monks’ quarters, a 200-year-old bodhi tree and an array of ... please log in to read the rest of this story.
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By
Mark Ord.
Last updated on 24th August, 2017.
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