Best Temples in Thailand

Bangkok’s royal temples are the most dazzling in the country and the busiest. Wat Phra Kaew, inside the walls of the Grand Palace, houses the Emerald Buddha, a 66 cm jade-green image that the king dresses in a new gold costume three times a year at the change of seasons. The compound is a riot of gilded chedis, mirror-tiled halls and giant demon guardians. Go at the 8.30am opening; the dress code is checked at the gate and the last tickets are sold at 3.30pm.

Ten minutes’ walk south, Wat Pho holds the 46 m Reclining Buddha, its feet inlaid with mother-of-pearl, along with the country’s best-known massage school. Across the river, the porcelain-studded central prang of Wat Arun rises about 70 m; cross on the 5-baht ferry from Tha Tien pier and watch sunset from the Wat Pho bank, not from inside.

The second tier is just as rewarding and far quieter. Wat Saket sits on the Golden Mount, 344 steps up to the best view of the old city. The Loha Prasat next door is a 37-spired “metal castle”, the only one left in the world. Wat Suthat, behind the red Giant Swing, has some of the finest murals in Bangkok. Wat Benchamabophit, the Marble Temple in Dusit, is built of Carrara marble and has a standing alms round at the gate around 6.30am. Wat Traimit in Chinatown holds a 5.5-tonne solid gold Buddha. For meditation, the English-language classes at Wat Mahathat near Tha Chang are free. Our Bangkok temples guide has the full route, piers and scams.

Ayutthaya was the Siamese capital for four centuries until the Burmese sacked it in 1767, and its ruins are the easiest great day trip from Bangkok: 80 minutes to two hours by train for 15 to 20 baht in third class, or 90 minutes by minivan. Inside the Ayutthaya Historical Park, the three bell-shaped chedis of Wat Phra Si Sanphet mark the old royal temple, and next door Wihan Phra Mongkhon Bophit shelters one of the largest bronze Buddhas in the country. At Wat Mahathat a sandstone Buddha head is wrapped in the roots of a fig tree; crouch for the photo, because standing above the head is disrespectful. Wat Ratchaburana has a climbable prang with faded murals in its crypt.

The most photogenic ruin is Wat Chaiwatthanaram, a Khmer-style prang and ring of towers on the riverbank west of the island, best at sunset. Off the island, Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon and Wat Phanan Choeng, with its 19 m seated Buddha, are working temples rather than ruins.

The Fine Arts Department charges 50 baht per site or 220 baht for a combined ticket to six of them. Hire a bicycle (50 to 100 baht a day) or a tuk-tuk by the hour (200 to 300 baht); the sites are too spread out to walk in the heat. Several main ruins are floodlit after dark. Sukhothai Historical Park, the 13th-century capital five hours further north, is quieter and greener, best explored by bicycle at dawn. Our separate historic sites page covers Sukhothai and the other old cities in detail.

Chiang Mai has more than 300 temples, around 30 of them inside the moat, and most are working Lanna monasteries with teak halls, gilded chedis and monks sweeping the courtyards. The essential one is Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, on a mountain 15 km west of town: climb the 306-step naga staircase (or take the funicular for 20 baht) to a gold-plated chedi with views over the valley. Foreigners pay 30 baht. Shared red songthaews leave from near the zoo and Chiang Mai University for about 60 to 100 baht each way; go before 9am to beat the tour vans.

In the old city, Wat Phra Singh is the most revered, its small Wihan Lai Kham holding the Phra Singh Buddha and murals of 19th-century Lanna life. Wat Chedi Luang is built around a massive brick chedi half-ruined by an earthquake in the 16th century, which once housed the Emerald Buddha; its afternoon monk chat tables are the best way to ask a novice about monastic life. Wat Chiang Man is the city’s oldest temple, ringed by stone elephants. West of the moat, the white chedis of Wat Suan Dok hold the ashes of the Chiang Mai royal family, and Wat Jet Yod has seven spires modelled on the Mahabodhi temple in India. Wat Umong, a forest temple of brick tunnels in the foothills, is free and peaceful. The Chiang Mai temples guide covers the Monk’s Trail, the silver temple and a one-day route.

Chiang Rai, three hours from Chiang Mai by Green Bus, is known for temples finished within living memory. Wat Rong Khun, the White Temple, 13 km south of town, is the life’s work of the artist Chalermchai Kositpipat, begun in 1997: a white ubosot inlaid with mirror glass, reached over a bridge above a pit of reaching hands, with murals inside that mix the Buddha with superheroes and the 9/11 towers. Foreigners pay 100 baht; photos are banned inside the hall, and it is at its emptiest at the 8am opening. The Blue Temple, Wat Rong Suea Ten, built by one of his students on the north side of town, has a sapphire-and-gold hall and a white Buddha inside, and is free. In the centre, Wat Phra Kaew is where the Emerald Buddha was found in 1434, when lightning cracked open a chedi; a jade replica sits there today.

Two hours north, Wat Phra That Doi Tung crowns a peak on the Myanmar border near Mae Sai; its twin gilded chedis are said to hold a relic of the Buddha’s collarbone, and the drive up passes the royal villa and gardens. Combine it with the Golden Triangle viewpoint.

An hour west of Bangkok by train, Phra Pathommachedi in Nakhon Pathom is the tallest stupa in Thailand at about 120 m, an orange-tiled dome on the site of one of the earliest Buddhist settlements in the region. It makes an easy half day combined with the Sunday floating markets nearby. North of Ayutthaya, Lopburi’s Phra Prang Sam Yot, three Khmer towers overrun by macaques, is a quick stop on the northern railway; hold on to your bag and sunglasses.

In Phitsanulok, Wat Phra Si Rattana Mahathat holds the Phra Phuttha Chinnarat, a gilded Sukhothai-era bronze with a flame-shaped halo that many Thais regard as the most beautiful Buddha image in the country. Entry is free, the dress code is strictly enforced, and it fits easily on the way to Sukhothai. In the east, Wat Khao Sukim, a hilltop meditation temple about 30 km from Chanthaburi, is reached by an inclined lift and filled with halls of donated jade, porcelain and antiques.

The northeast’s great temples are Khmer, built in sandstone between the 10th and 13th centuries when Angkor ruled this plateau. Phanom Rung, on an extinct volcano in Buriram, is the most dramatic: a processional causeway, naga bridges and a central sanctuary aligned so that the sun shines through all 15 doorways at sunrise for a few days in early April. Prasat Muang Tam below it has moated lotus ponds; Phimai Historical Park in Phimai, 60 km from Nakhon Ratchasima, is the largest; and Prasat Sikhoraphum near Surin has a carved lintel of a dancing Shiva. Fees are around 100 baht each, or 150 baht for Phanom Rung and Muang Tam together.

Foreigners pay at the famous temples; Thai nationals usually enter free. Fees below are as of 2026 and have risen at several Bangkok temples since 2024, so allow for small changes.

A wat is a monastery, not a single building, and the same parts repeat everywhere. The ubosot (or bot) is the ordination hall, the most sacred building, marked out by eight bai sema boundary stones set around it; at many temples it is locked outside ceremonies. The wihan is the assembly hall where the main Buddha images sit and where lay people come to pray, so it is usually the one you walk into. The chedi is a solid bell-shaped tower holding relics or ashes, tall and slender in Lanna and Sukhothai style. The prang is the corncob-shaped tower inherited from the Khmer, seen at Wat Arun, Ayutthaya and Lopburi. A mondop is a square pavilion sheltering a footprint or a sacred text.

Look at the roofs: the hooked chofa finials at the gable ends represent the garuda, and the serpentine naga running down the edges and along staircases guard the way in. Giant yaksha demons stand at the gates of royal temples. Buddha images follow set postures. Seated with the right hand touching the ground (calling the earth to witness) is the most common; the walking Buddha was a Sukhothai invention; the reclining Buddha shows the moment of death and release, as at Wat Pho; and the standing Buddha with one or both palms raised means “do not fear” or “calm the waters”. Many temples display a row of seven small images, one for each day of the week, so worshippers can make an offering at the one for the day they were born.

Cover shoulders and knees at every temple, men as well as women: no vests, short shorts, short skirts or leggings. The royal temples in Bangkok and Phitsanulok turn people away at the gate, while smaller ones lend sarongs. Take shoes and hats off before entering any building with a Buddha image, step over the raised threshold, and sit with your feet tucked to the side, pointing away from the altar. Women should not touch monks or hand them anything directly. Our Thai culture guide covers monks, offerings and the wider rules in detail.

Thai religion is layered, and some of the most atmospheric shrines are not Buddhist temples at all. The Erawan Shrine at the Ratchaprasong intersection in central Bangkok is a gilded four-faced Brahma, busy from dawn until late night, where worshippers who have had a wish granted pay classical dancers to perform; it is free. On Silom Road, the Tamil Sri Maha Mariamman Temple (Wat Khaek), built in the 1870s, has a towering gopuram of painted deities; photography is not allowed inside. In Chinatown, Wat Mangkon Kamalawat is the largest Chinese Buddhist temple in the city, thick with incense and at its liveliest during Chinese New Year and the October Vegetarian Festival. The City Pillar Shrine opposite the Grand Palace houses the spirit that guards Bangkok.

In the Muslim-majority far south, Krue Se Mosque near Pattani is a brick mosque dating to the 16th century, and the Talo Mano Mosque in Narathiwat is a wooden mosque around 300 years old, built in a blend of Thai, Malay and Chinese styles. Western governments advise against all but essential travel to Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat because of an ongoing insurgency, so check current advice and your insurance before going.