Thailand
Wat Pha Sorn Kaew
Five white Buddhas staring down a valley from a cliff covered in mosaic shards.
Five white Buddhas sit in ascending size on a hilltop sheathed in millions of coloured mosaic fragments — teacups, plates and tiles cemented into spiralling walls and walkways. Wat Pha Sorn Kaew, in the Khao Kho highlands of Phetchabun, looks like it was built by a god with a tile cutter.
Wat Pha Sorn Kaew is a contemporary Buddhist temple begun in 2004 on an 830-metre hilltop in the Khao Kho highlands, where cool-season cloud regularly swallows the valley below. Its five interconnected white Buddhas — each larger than the last — face out over the mist, and every wall, path and balustrade is worked in mosaic from porcelain and ceramic fragments, more than five million pieces and counting, with new sections still being laid. The wider Khao Kho plateau was a communist insurgent stronghold into the early 1980s; today its ridge roads link flower terraces, strawberry farms and mist viewpoints, and the temple is the crown of the circuit.
Couple
The mosaic detail, five Buddhas above a cloud-filled valley and cool highland air make this the temple morning your camera roll remembers.
Family
Children read the mosaics like an art installation — porcelain flowers and teacup spirals underfoot — and the paths are gentle for all ages.
- Five interconnected white Buddhas sit on a hilltop sheathed in more than five million mosaic pieces.
- The mosaic is built from porcelain fragments — teacups and plates whose detail only shows up close.
- In the cool season the Khao Kho valley below fills with cloud, leaving the Buddhas floating above mist.
- The temple crowns a highland circuit of flower terraces, strawberry farms and viewpoints.
Winter strawberries picked straight from Khao Kho's hillside fields.
Grilled pork neck with sticky rice at a viewpoint restaurant above the valley.
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