Thailand (Lonely Planet, 13th Edition) - China Williams [443]
Bangkok buses (2nd/1st class/24-seat VIP 430/515/855B, 10 hours) also use the bus station, but currently (this may change) you should buy tickets at the old bus station (or the shops just west of it) on the south side of the city. Some of the buses start their journey here before heading to the new bus station to get more passengers. There are a few morning buses, but most depart between 5pm and 7pm.
There’s an immigration office in town, but it’s only for the Lao traders on market day: nobody else is allowed to cross the river here.
SAKON NAKHON PROVINCE
Many famous forest temples sit deep in the Phu Pan mountain range that runs across Sakon Nakhon Province, and among Sakon Nakhon’s famous sons are several of the most highly revered monks in Thai history, including Luang Pu (Ajahn) Man Bhuridatto (although born in Ubon Ratchathani he spent his most influential years here) and his student, Luang Pu (Ajahn) Fan Ajaro. Both were ascetic tú·dong monks who attained high levels of proficiency in vipassana meditation and are widely recognised among Thais as having been arahants (fully enlightened beings).
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SAKON NAKHON
pop 68,000
Workaday Sakon Nakhon is primarily an agricultural market and Th Ratpattana is chock-a-block with shops selling farm equipment. Although the city centre is the usual concrete mess, quiet neighbourhoods on the fringes are full of old wooden houses, and this is where you’ll find the two historic temples of Wat Phra That Choeng Chum and Wat Pa Sutthawat, the town’s main attractions.
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Information
Most banks are found along Sukkasem and Ratpattana Sts. Branches of Bangkok Bank at Big C (Th Jai Phasuk) and Tesco-Lotus (Th Makkhalai) shopping centres open 10am to 8pm daily, though they exchange cash only. Internet cafes are spread liberally around town.
Sights
WAT PA SUTTHAWAT
The grounds of Wat Pa Sutthawat (daylight hr), on the southwestern outskirts of town, are essentially a shrine to two of Thailand’s best-known monks. Most famous of all is Luang Pu (Ajahn) Man Bhuridatto, who helped found the temple but didn’t live here until just before his death in 1949. The final resting place of Ajahn Man’s personal effects, the Ajahn Man Museum, bizarrely looks a bit like a modern Christian church, with arches and etched-glass windows. A bronze image of Ajahn Man sits on a pedestal at the back and relics that remained after his cremation are in a glass box in front.
Luang Pu (Ajahn) Lui Chanthasaro, who died in 1989, was one of Ajahn Man’s most famous students and King Rama IX designed the chedi that holds the Ajahn Lui Museum. Ajahn Lui is represented in lifelike wax.
Both museums showcase all the monks’ worldly possessions, as well as photographs and descriptions of their lives; Ajahn Man’s displays, signed in English, provide a good sense of a typical monk’s life.
WAT PHRA THAT CHOENG CHUM
The most visible highlight at Wat Phra That Choeng Chum (Stupa of the Gathering of the Footprints; Th Reuang Sawat; daylight hr) is the 24m-high Lao-style chedi, which was erected during the Ayuthaya period over a smaller 11th-century Khmer prang. It was built above four Buddha footprints, which Thais believe were each left by different incarnations of the Lord Buddha. To view the prang you must enter through the adjacent wí·hhn. If the door to the chedi is locked, ask one of the monks to open it; they’re used to having visitors. Lôok ní·mít (spherical ordination-precinct markers that look like cannonballs and are buried under the regular boundary markers that surround most bòht) are lined up in the back.
Also on the grounds are a Lan Xang–era bòht and an octagonal hr rai that now houses an interesting little museum. Again, the monks will be happy to get the key and let you have a look around inside. The top of the western gate resembles the wax castles carved for the Buddhist Rains Retreat (opposite), and you can usually see the temple’s actual parade float parked way