Wat Ban Khai

What the official record says

Where Wat Ban Khai is

When was it founded — and what actually establishes that?

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.

The same account explains the village name: a long earth bank was once visible north of the monastery and villagers believed it to be a Khmer camp, which is where the name Ban Khai, camp village, is said to come from. No survey of that bank was found in any official source consulted.

The history of Wat Ban Khai

Ban Khai sits inland from Rayong town, up the Khlong Yai valley, and the monastery that gives the district its name is the place to see what the inland Chinese-Thai craft tradition of the early twentieth century actually looked like. The Fine Arts Department register carries the account of a former abbot, Phra Khru Wichit Thammanuwat, known to everyone as Luang Pho Wong: the monastery is said to have been set up in B.E. 2350 and to have begun as two, an upper establishment and a lower one, with the upper moving down to join the lower after the canal current took its ground. The village name has its own story in the same passage. A long earth bank used to be visible to the north, villagers held that it was a Khmer camp, and the place became Ban Khai, camp village. Nothing in the official record surveys that bank, so the etymology stays where the register puts it, in the realm of what people say.

The dated part of the file is short and firm. An ordination boundary was granted in B.E. 2506, fifteen meters by thirty. On 17 December B.E. 2544 the department registered the monastery under section 7 of the Ancient Monuments Act B.E. 2504 and drew 5 rai 33 square wa around it — item 6 of a four-province announcement, a figure that can be read straight off the department's own scan and that matches the register to the square wa.

The monument inside that boundary is the mondop, which the register puts at about B.E. 2455. It is masonry on a high base with a circumambulation terrace running all the way round, under a timber roof in the tiered prasat form topped by a bell-shaped stupa. Every face carries a gable with stucco lamyong, worked with thep phanom and kanok. The band below the roof is where the building earns the trip: stucco auspicious animals in Chinese taste run around it — dragon, tiger, mandarin ducks, peacock, lion, qilin and deer — with garuda grasping naga at the corners. One door front, one back, windows along the sides, all with timber leaves. Inside are a Buddha image and a replica of the Buddha's footprint.

It is in good order, which in this province is worth saying out loud. The department's statement of present condition for Wat Ban Khai reads sound, against very badly deteriorated for the old hall and chedi at Wat Ratchaballang and derelict for the 1909 ordination hall at Wat Udom Thanyawat up the coast. Of the ten Rayong monuments registered with a determined land boundary, this is among the ones a visitor will find standing as described.

What you actually see

The mondop itself, which the register dates to about B.E. 2455: masonry on a high base with a circumambulation terrace running all round it, under a tiered timber roof in prasat form crowned by a bell-shaped stupa.

The eaves band of stucco auspicious animals in Chinese taste — dragon, tiger, mandarin ducks, peacock, lion, qilin and deer — which is the single most distinctive thing on the building.

Garuda grasping naga worked at the corners of the mondop, and gables on every face carrying stucco lamyong with thep phanom and kanok.

Inside, a Buddha image and a replica of the Buddha's footprint, reached through one door at the front and one at the back, with timber-leaved windows down the sides.

The registered ground of 5 rai 33 square wa, the figure drawn by the announcement of 17 December B.E. 2544 and legible on the department's own scan of the page.

Visiting: hours, admission, dress and photography

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.

What we could not establish

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.

• Whether the earth bank north of the monastery, which the handed-down account calls a Khmer camp, has ever been surveyed. No official source consulted mentions a survey or an excavation.
• The B.E. 2350 setting-up date, which reaches the register through a former abbot's account rather than through any instrument.
• Who built the mondop and who modeled its animal frieze. The register dates the building to about B.E. 2455 and names nobody.
• The opening hours, which no official source read in this run publishes.

Wat Ban Khai: common questions

Where to go from here

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 Rayong’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.