Temples are to Thailand what cathedrals are to Europe. And having spent the better part of this year touring Europe’s cathedrals it’s not surprising that my mind wandered back there upon seeing Wat Rong Khun in the North of Thailand.
Where it wandered to specifically was the Spanish basilica of La Sagrada Familia. The two places couldn’t be more different in every respect, save one: they’re both modern interpretations of age-old designs.
What struck me most about La Sagrada Familia wasn’t its beauty or its size but the way in which its design felt simultaneously familiar and yet totally new. It has towering columns and vaulted ceilings and huge stained glass windows. Everything is exactly how you’d expect, only wildly different. It’s that juxtaposition between the familiar and the unusual that I found so compelling about La Sagrada Familia. The same might be said for Wat Rong Khun.
More commonly known to visitors as The White Temple, Wat Rong Khun appears initially as a fairly typical Wat. It has the same basic temple structure of others in Northern Thailand, although this one is more flamboyantly adorned and, most strikingly, has replaced typical gilded flourishes with a façade of pure white.
Once you get closer you realize that Wat Rong Khun isn’t just white, it’s weird. Designed by artist Chalermchai Kositpipat in 1997, the temple blends traditional Buddhist symbolism with iconography from popular culture. Entering the compound we walked past a main gate adorned with skulls and heads hanging from trees. But it wasn’t until we saw Predator crawling out of the ground that we fully appreciated the strangeness of Wat Rong Khun.
The main temple is connected by a “bridge of rebirth” that spans a moat filled with outstretched human hands. The grasping hands purportedly represent desire but could also easily pass for the River Styx as described in Dante’s Inferno.
Along the bridge you pass through a gate of tusks and approach the imposing figures of Death and Rahu who together decide your fate.
Inside the main temple, or ubosot, you’re greeted by a traditional statue of Buddha who is surrounded by frescoes that are anything but typical. Instead of scenes depicting Buddhist stories, the ubosot walls are decorated with colorful, comic book-like murals featuring space ships, Superman, Kung Fu Panda, and Elvis, among others.
In a way we feel like we visited Wat Rong Khun out of order. By the time we saw La Sagrada Familia we had already explored dozens of cathedrals and really appreciated the way Gaudi deviated from Gothic traditions while still retaining so much of their essence. The White Temple, meanwhile, was one of our first temples in Thailand. And while it’s certainly visually stunning even for the uninitiated, had we visited later we might have had a better sense of how Superman finds his way into a place of worship. Or, on second thought, perhaps not.
