The abbot of Wat Don Khual (or Kwan) in Phana has big plans for his monastery. The wat is one of the newer ones in Phana but it has undertaken a lot of building work in the last six years or so. One of the reasons it has been able to do this is that Don Khual is on the eastern edge of Phana Municipality in a small village, but the wat has a large pond adjacent to it and every year the pond has been the site of the largest Loy Kratong festival for miles around. Thousands of people come to join in the celebration, most of them on motor-bikes and in pick-up trucks. It draws in the rural population who are always up for a good time. The abbot and the villagers who support his monastery (that means pretty much all of them) organise the festivities and raise (and spend) a lot of money each year. Roses are bought and sold at a profit and presented to contestants in the beauty contests (one for the girls, one for the lady-boys) and the person with the largest number of roses is declared the winner. The local schools, too, play their part by making little 'favours' for sale, and kratongs are made and sold too. Highlight of the evening is the firework display, the highlight of highlights for me being the way the abbot fires off rockets he holds in one hand while he lights them with the other. So far he has been miraculously (?) unburnt by this. No-one but me seems to find his performance anything out of the ordinary.
The abbot also has some rich supporters in Bangkok who have donated statuary and some small buildings. Presumably these supporters are Phana people, the abbot himself being a local.
About two years ago the abbot conceived the idea of building the second tallest that in Isaan, the tallest being Phra That Phanom. The amount of money that had to be raised was set at 20 million Baht. The project, not surprisingly, has been very stop/start but it was back in full swing when we left Phana back in March. I believe that about 7 million Baht had been raised at that time. Donations to the wat are acceptable at all times, but now if you are making a donation it can be dedicated to this building project or alternatively to the wat's general upkeep fund. I shall be interested to see how far the building has progressed when I get back to Phana, which coincidentally will be on the day they are celebrating Loy Kratong. In the meantime, here are some photos I took from a site called wat isan which the abbot is always asking me to link to on this blog. It is all in Thai and applying google translate can provide some interesting and amusing moments.
This first photo is a montage of the abbot's 'vision' superimposed on the first 'poles' to be built. The tree will survive because it is actually some way behind the that.
I love the sturdy bamoo scaffolding so commonly used in construction in Thailand:
The abbot is always very hands-on, as noted above re the fireworks:
The naga balustrade nears completion:
And this shows how far the project had progressed when I visited a few days before we left Phana.
Still a long way to go. Onwards and upwards.
Lawrence looking at the bottom photo there still is a long way to go to complete the abbot's vision but hopefully things will have progressed by now. I'm always amazed at how willing Thais are to donate to their local wat.
The super imposed picture looks like it will be a splendid structure when the eventual 20 million baht and massive workload is complete. Perhaps the abbot should have settled for something smaller, but perhaps his grand plans are born from letting those rockets soar from his hands.
Posted by: Martyn | 22 November 2010 at 05:34 AM