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Temple sanctuary for fish and birds Pathum Thani, 46 kilometre north of Bangkok, is the home of Mon people as well as a sanctuary for the Asian openbill stork, (Nok Pakhang). Chedi Hoy, a pagoda made of hundreds of thousands oyster shells is another attraction of the province. From Bangkok we drove along the Vibhavadi Rangsit Road and turned left at the intersection opposite Future Park department store onto Highway 346 and used the Rural Highway 3035 to get to Muang district in Pathum Thani, and then followed the road sign to Wat Hongpathummawas, a temple, around which is a thriving Mon community. Mon people have been living in Pathum Thani since the Ayutthaya period. They migrated from Burma during the reigns of Kings Narai and Taksin the Great. In those days the province was called Sam Khok. The last Mons came during the time of King Rama II in the Rattanakosin period. In the year 1815, King Rama II visited the Mon community and people showed their respect for the King by presenting him lotus flowers. The King then gave the village a new name, Pathum Thani, or the lotus city. Two landmarks of Mon people are still well preserved at Wat Hongpathummawas in Muang district, said Sommit Wongsuntorn, an advisor to Bang Parok, a Mon community that has a library in the shape of a boat. "One is a white chedi which was built imitating the Chittakong Chedi in Burma and the other is a small sculpture of a golden swan or hong as the bird is called in Thai," he said, adding that his community holds a ceremony every August to highlight their significance to the new generation. Wat Hongpathummawas is also popular among visitors who love to feed fish. "There are big fishes here, like pla sawai (striped catfish) and pla thae pho (black-eared catfish). It's fun throwing a roll of bread and see them beat each other for food," said a visitor, who had already spent 100 baht feeding them. The sum was worth two baskets of fish food and two rolls of bread. Next to her were a group of university students who brought a whole sack of fish food and screamed in delight as the creatures jostled for a bite, their motion spraying water on the students. We left the temple and used Rural Highways 347 and 3309 to get to Wat Phai Lom on the eastern bank of Chao Phraya River. The temple is a popular place for watching Asian openbill storks. The birds with broad wings have lived in the green fileds surrounding the temple for a century. They walk gingerly when on the ground, feeding on frogs, large insects or apple snails, but take flight to nearby trees at the first sound of human footsteps. The temple welcomes visitors keen to study their behaviour. Another attraction here is a temple in Lat Lum Kaeo district called Wat Chedi Hoy. It boasts a huge collection of oyster shells, some of them a thousand years old, that were discovered accidentally during construction of a chedi back in 1983. Digging at the site continued for 12 more years uncovering a treasure trove of oyster shells, some of them a foot long, of various shapes and colours and a thousand years old. It prompted the abbot to use them to build the chedi that sits in front of the temple, and the excavated site has been turned into a fish pond. At the end of it the abbot was still left a sizeable amount of shells. He therefore used it to build another chedi inside the temple. Since then the Buddhist temple has been called Wat Chedi Hoy. If you are feeling tired at the end of the day, check out any of the restaurants that sit by the Chao Phraya. They are open again after the flooding the past two months that cut off roads and forced them to close business. All of them serve excellent meals. |