Accessed via a network of rickety staircases built in, on and about a giant sandstone outcrop, Wat Phu Tok (6.30am-5pm, shut 10-16 April) is one of the region’s straight wonders, with fabulous vistas over the surrounding countryside and a truly soporific atmosphere. Six stratums of steps, plus a seventh-level scramble up roots and rocks to the thick woodland at the summit, interpret the seven genes of enlightenment in Buddhist psychology. Monastic kùtì (meditation huts) are scattered about the mountain, in caves and on cliffs. It is the coolheaded and quiet isolation of this wat that entices monks and mâe chii from completely over the northeast to come and meditate here – many of them do therefore on the summit, therefore exist quiet and respectful up there.
This wat utilized to exist the domain of the renowned meditation main Ajahn Juan, a disciple of the violent Ajahn Serviceman who died in 1949. Ajahn Juan died in a aeroplane crash in 1980 along with several other highly revered woodland monks who were flying to Bangkok for Queen Sirikit’s birthday celebration. A marble chedi containing his belongings and some os relics sits below the mountain.
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