Description
Wat Pho Si Kaeo (วัดโพธิ์ศรีแก้ว) is a quiet village temple that's a few kilometers from the forest cave temple Wat Tham Phra Na Nai. This small, rural temple in Sakon Nakhon reminded us of the fact that all Thai temples are different. And one of the many ways they are different is how the face of the Buddha is depicted in their main statues.
Considering there are well over a million statues at Thai temples (see our article "How Many Temples Does Thailand Have?), one would think that statue makers frequently use model templates to create statues of the Buddha.
However, models are usually only used for massed produced Buddhist figurines and medium sized statues of the Buddha. When it comes to full-sized and larger statues of the Buddha, even in a little, rural temple like Wat Pho Si Kaeo has a sculpture of the Buddha with an original face (at least it appears so to us, and we have examined thousands of Buddha statue faces close up!).
If you compare the faces of the 3 statues of the Buddha that reside inside the wooden Viharn of Wat Pho Si Kaeo — which more closely resemble traditional representations of the Buddha's face in Thailand — you'll see just how original is the face of the Buddha who sits under a small open-air pavilion outside the Viharn.
So, we encourage you to visit all temples in your Thailand Off the Beaten Track holiday, because even small Thai temples in the countryside have something unique to share.
Another nearby temple in this area of Sakon Nakhon's Phanna Nikhom District (which is famous for its historic temples) is Wat Phon Tham, located less than kilometer down the road.
