Phuket's most visited temple, at Chalong in Mueang Phuket district, carried in the Fine Arts Department's own register without registration or gazette listing and with no founding date on record — only a rebuilding in 1837. Its reputation rests on the monk Luang Pho Chaem, who organised the village's defence against the 1876 Ang Yi uprising and was given an ecclesiastical title by Rama V for it.
วัดฉลอง (วัดไชยธาราราม) · Wat Chalong (Wat Chaiyathararam)
| Official name | วัดฉลอง (วัดไชยธาราราม) — Wat Chalong (Wat Chaiyathararam) |
|---|---|
| Where | Chalong, Mueang Phuket, Phuket |
| Royal temple class | Not established from an official register. |
| Monastic order | Not recorded in any register we could read. |
| Ancient monument | Carried in the national monument register; no gazette registration recorded Carried in the Fine Arts Department's national monument register at register status 0 — the department's own code for a site entered in its database as โบราณสถาน, an ancient monument, without having gone through either the formal registration process under section 7 of the Ancient Monuments Act or a gazette listing. It is not the same legal position as monuments 5, 6 or 8 elsewhere in this province, and the page does not upgrade it. The register gives no gazette reference and none was found elsewhere. |
| Coordinates | 7.846844, 98.336852 Fine Arts Department register, monument 0008488 |
Thai temple histories mix two different kinds of statement, and this guide keeps them apart. What a register, a gazette entry, an inscription or a dated royal act shows is one thing. What the chronicles and the temple itself hold is another, and it is worth telling as what it is.
No document, inscription or excavation naming an original founding year for Wat Chalong was found in this research. The 1837 rebuilding is the earliest dated fact the Fine Arts Department's own register supplies, and it is presented as exactly that — a rebuilding, not a founding.
Wat Chalong, formally Wat Chaiyathararam, stands on Chao Fah West Road in Tambon Chalong, a short drive from Phuket Town, and is by a wide margin the most visited Buddhist temple on the island. It is also, by the Fine Arts Department's own register, one of the least documented in this guide so far: register status 0, no formal registration, no gazette entry, and an importance note that opens not with a founding date but with an admission that none survives — 'ไม่ปรากฏหลักฐานเมื่อแรกสร้าง', no evidence of the original construction appears.
What the department's record does establish is a rebuilding in B.E. 2380 (1837), a change of name from Wat Chalong, after the village, to Wat Chaiyathararam under the monk Luang Pho Chaem, and a royal land grant around B.E. 2386 (1843). The temple, the record says, originally stood in paddy land to the north and moved to its current site sometime before B.E. 2393 (1850) under an earlier abbot the department names only as Pho Than Thao; a single Buddha image recovered from that earlier ground is now enshrined in a vihara east of the present temple and is known to local people as Luang Pho Chao Wat, or Pho Than Nok.
The temple's reputation, and the reason buses of visitors stop here before anywhere else on the island, is Luang Pho Chaem's role in the Ang Yi uprising of B.E. 2419 (1876). Chinese tin-mine labourers rose against the colonial-era mining administration, and the violence spread faster than the province's own governor, Phraya Wichitsongkhram, could contain it while a relief force made its way down from Bangkok. Villagers who took shelter at Wat Chalong asked Luang Pho Chaem to flee with them; both the Fine Arts Department's and the Tourism Authority's accounts agree that he refused, distributed white cloth charms to steady their courage, and organised them into a force that beat the rebels back twice before they scattered. When the story reached the capital, Rama V granted him the ecclesiastical title Phra Khru Wisutthiwongsachan Yanamuni and made him sangkhapamokk — the senior monastic authority — of Mueang Phuket, a position of trust the department's register notes explicitly.
Two later abbots, Luang Pho Chuang and Luang Pho Kluem, extended the temple's reputation into herbal medicine and bone-setting, arts the Tourism Authority says were handed down through successive abbots and are still why some visitors come to pay respects rather than simply to sightsee. Luang Pho Kluem, abbot from B.E. 2488 to 2521 (1945–1978) per the department's own art-and-culture note, restored the ubosot and the mondop housing Luang Pho Chaem's statue and built the monks' quarters and sermon hall; a later abbot known as Maha Fueang further expanded the temple's usable ground. The temple was recognised as an outstanding developed temple (วัดพัฒนาดีเด่น) in B.E. 2527 (1984), and the department's own present-use note describes it today in two words: a functioning Buddhist temple and a major tourist site — เป็นวัดในพระพุทธศาสนา และเป็นสถานที่ท่องเที่ยวที่สำคัญ.
BAANLYY does not represent this temple and nothing on this page is legal or religious advice.
The bronze statues of Luang Pho Chaem, Luang Pho Chuang and Luang Pho Kluem, kept in a mondop and the object of the temple's daily stream of visitors — the Tourism Authority describes the continuing devotion to them as a living thread of Phuket's own history rather than a museum piece.
Phra Mahathat Chedi Phra Chom Thai Baramee Prakat, a large stupa enshrining a Buddha relic the temple states was brought from Sri Lanka, open for the public to pay homage inside — per the Tourism Authority's own description; this claim rests on the temple's own account and is stated here as such.
A large Thai-style pavilion (เรือนไทย) housing wax figures of several revered monks associated with the temple, per the Tourism Authority.
The ubosot and mondop rebuilt under Luang Pho Kluem's abbotship, and the monks' quarters and sermon hall he had built for the temple's founding-era abbots, per the Fine Arts Department's own art-and-culture note.
The vihara east of the main temple grounds housing the single Buddha image recovered from the temple's earlier site, known locally as Luang Pho Chao Wat or Pho Than Nok.
This is a working place of worship for millions of people rather than an attraction, and it is treated as one at the gate. Where a figure below is blank, no source we are prepared to cite states it.
| Hours | Not established from an official source. |
|---|---|
| Admission | Not established from an official source. |
| Dress | A major working temple. Shoulders and knees covered, shoes off before entering the ubosot and viharas. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | 70 Moo 6, Chao Fah West Road, Chalong, Mueang Phuket, Phuket 83130. Phone +66 7638 1226, per the Tourism Authority of Thailand. |
Every temple reference repeats claims nobody has checked. These are the ones we went looking for and could not stand up, listed so you know exactly where this page stops.
Not established as an original founding date. The Fine Arts Department's own register states outright that no evidence of the temple's first construction survives, and the earliest dated fact on record is a rebuilding in B.E. 2380 (1837), when the temple was also renamed from Wat Chalong to Wat Chaiyathararam under the monk Luang Pho Chaem. It received a royal land grant, wisungkhamsima, around B.E. 2386 (1843).
Luang Pho Chaem was the abbot credited with organising Wat Chalong's villagers to resist the 1876 Ang Yi uprising, when Chinese tin-mine labourers rose against the local mining administration and the provincial governor lacked the force to contain it before help arrived from Bangkok. Rather than flee with the villagers who sought shelter at the temple, he stayed, distributed protective cloth charms, and rallied a defence that beat the rebels back twice. Rama V later granted him the ecclesiastical title Phra Khru Wisutthiwongsachan Yanamuni and made him the senior monastic authority of Mueang Phuket, a title the Fine Arts Department's own register still records.
No, and the distinction matters. The Fine Arts Department's national register carries Wat Chalong at status 0 — entered in its database as an ancient monument site, but never taken through the formal registration process under the Ancient Monuments Act, nor listed in the Royal Gazette. That is a different and lesser legal position than the registered or gazette-listed monuments elsewhere in this guide, and this page states it plainly rather than implying formal protection that the record does not show.
The temple's own account, as reported by the Tourism Authority of Thailand, describes a large stupa called Phra Mahathat Chedi Phra Chom Thai Baramee Prakat as enshrining a Buddha relic brought from Sri Lanka, open to the public inside. No independent Thai state source consulted for this page corroborates the relic's provenance, so it is presented here as the temple's own claim rather than a documented fact.
A large Thai-style pavilion at Wat Chalong houses wax likenesses of several revered monks connected to the temple, alongside the bronze statues of Luang Pho Chaem, Luang Pho Chuang and Luang Pho Kluem that draw the temple's daily stream of worshippers — the three abbots credited respectively with the 1876 defence and with herbal medicine and bone-setting practised at the temple in later generations.
Before you go, read the guide to Buddhism and temple etiquette in Thailand — dress, footwear, where photography is not welcome and how to behave around monks. The rest of Phuket’s temples are covered here too.
Every temple here sits in a place worth reading about on its own terms. The nationwide temple guide covers the other provinces to the same documentary standard as this page, and says on each one what the record establishes and what it does not.
If you are thinking about more than a visit: work out which Thai visa route fits your situation, and see what is available to rent and buy in residences across Thailand.
Every fact on this page is drawn from the sources above. Where they disagree, this page says so rather than choosing silently. Registrations, fees, hours and access change; confirm anything you are relying on with the authority concerned. BAANLYY LLC is a Nevada company and a listing portal, does not represent any temple, and offers no legal or religious advice.