Description
Wat Si Bun Rueang (วัดศรีบุญเรือง) is a small, forest temple in Phanna Nikhom, only about a kilometer from Wat Bot Mat Samakee and 30 minutes from downtown Sakon Nakhon city. It should to be confused with the Wat Si Bun Rueang in Tambon Khamin, or the other Wat Si Bun Rueang temple located in the Ban Wang Yang village of Phanna Nikhom.
Wat Si Bun Rueang means The Temple of Shining Merit. We are not certain, but we may have only seen one part of this Buddhist temple during our visit. If the photos on the temple's Google Maps listing is correct, it looks like we perhaps entered the temple from their back entrance, which has a simple gate, flanked by wooden tree pillars and a red pavilion top, with no signage identifying the temple.
As we entered through that gate, we eventually saw a red brick building which was locked up, and could have been a Viharn or an education building. We almost left before deciding to turn right and take a stroll through the woods, and we certainly were glad we did! Because inside the woods is an old red brick stupa/chedi, with statues of famous monks on each side, including a rare statue of Thailand's only long-haired Buddhist monk: Luang Pu Sorn Paphassaro (หลวงปู่สอน ปภสฺสโร), who for much of his life was a resident monk at the nearby Wat Si Thammarat.
In addition to the monk surrounded chedi, there are several white Buddha statues within the woods, which have been placed at the base of trees. In one instance, the roots of the tree are entwined gorgeously around an old laterite pedestal upon which the white Buddha statue has been placed. This leads us to believe that the temple grounds are quite old, perhaps as old as those of the aforementioned Wat Si Thammarat, which was built in the 1800s.
