Wat Phra That Lampang Luang
A walled temple on a mound south of Lampang, and the finest surviving wooden Lanna building in Thailand.
Wat Phra That Lampang Luang
Wat Phra That Lampang Luang stands on a low mound about twenty kilometres south of Lampang, inside the brick ramparts of what was originally a fortified settlement. It is widely regarded as the most important wooden temple complex in Thailand and the best place to see Lanna architecture intact rather than reconstructed.
The open-sided Wihan Luang, dating in its present form to the early sixteenth century, is the centrepiece: a vast tiered roof carried on massive teak columns lacquered black and gold, sheltering a gilded ku that holds the principal Buddha image. Around it stand smaller wihans, a gilded chedi, and a scripture library raised on a decorated base. A darkened chamber in one of the buildings projects an inverted image of the chedi through a small hole in the wall - a working camera obscura, and the detail most visitors remember.
A musket ball lodged in the railing is pointed out as a relic of a seventeenth-century fight to expel Burmese occupiers.
- Baan Sao Nak, Lampang — A 1895 teak house standing on 116 pillars, in Lampang's old Burmese quarter.
- Wat Chalermprakiat, Lampang — White chedis perched on bare limestone pinnacles, reached by a staircase cut into the rock.
- Wat Phra Kaeo Don Tao, Lampang — The riverside temple that held the Emerald Buddha for thirty-two years, with a Burmese-style mondop.
