A riverside temple on Khlong U-Taphao whose ruined wooden pavilion was rebuilt by its own community and given an Honourable Mention in the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation in 2011 — an award, not a World Heritage listing.
วัดคูเต่า · Wat Khu Tao
| Official name | วัดคูเต่า — Wat Khu Tao |
|---|---|
| Where | Mae Thom, Bang Klam, Songkhla |
| Royal temple class | Not established from an official register. |
| Monastic order | Not recorded in any register we could read. |
| Ancient monument | Not established. |
| Coordinates | 7.107624, 100.466428 Prince of Songkla University library southern-Thailand database — a community-sourced figure, not a survey |
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.
A university local-knowledge portal gives an ordination-boundary grant of B.E. 2433 (1890), which sits oddly before the ordination hall's reported completion in B.E. 2445 (1902) and is not reconciled by any source read here. Because it comes from a portal rather than from the register, it is kept on the tradition side of the line.
Wat Khu Tao stands on the bank of Khlong U-Taphao in Tambon Mae Thom, Amphoe Bang Klam, about twelve kilometres north of Hat Yai. It is worth being precise about that, because there is a Tambon Khu Tao in Amphoe Hat Yai — a different subdistrict in a different district — and the two are regularly confused. The temple is in Mae Thom, and both the government tourism directory and the Prince of Songkla University library's southern-Thailand database put it there.
The temple's fame rests on something unusual in this guide: not on antiquity, not on a relic, but on a piece of conservation practice. Its old wooden pavilion had deteriorated to complete ruin. It was rebuilt — not replaced — by a project that put local builders, traditional materials and vernacular carpentry at the centre of the work, with technical specialists and educational institutions supporting rather than directing. In 2011 that project received an Honourable Mention in the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation, and the jury citation says exactly why: the participatory approach, the technical competence of the rebuild, the eighteenth-century date of the pavilion, and the fact that the work generated enough local interest to carry on into the restoration of other buildings in the monastery.
It is important to say plainly what that award is and is not. The UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation are an annual competitive recognition for completed restoration projects, run out of UNESCO's Bangkok office. They have nothing whatever to do with the World Heritage List, which is a treaty instrument under the 1972 Convention. Wat Khu Tao is not a World Heritage site and has never been nominated as one. Several Thai popular accounts describe it as มรดกโลก — world heritage — and that is simply wrong. An honourable mention in a conservation award is a real distinction earned by real work, and it does not need to be inflated into something it isn't.
Behind the award is a temple whose own history is told by its community rather than by a register. The accounts hold that it was established in the Ayutthaya period, conventionally dated to B.E. 2299 (1756), by a monk remembered as Phra Upachaya Kaeo, on land belonging to a Chinese settler; that his death interrupted the building of the ordination hall; and that a successor, Phra Upachaya Nu, completed it in B.E. 2445 (1902). One published abbot list gives the first incumbency as running from 1756 to 1852, which is implausible on its face and is flagged here rather than repeated. A university portal gives an ordination-boundary grant of B.E. 2433 (1890), which would precede the hall it belongs to. None of these dates was read in a register for this page.
What the temple did for its district is easier to establish than when it was built. The university library's database records that from B.E. 2483 (1940) its pavilions housed the first school of Pali and Dhamma study in the Hat Yai area — which is to say the wooden buildings the conservation project saved were the district's first classrooms. That is the strongest argument for the pavilion's significance, and it is a better one than an uncertain founding date.
The restored wooden pavilion — the building named in the UNESCO award citation, rebuilt from complete ruin using traditional materials and vernacular carpentry by builders from the surrounding community.
The ordination hall: brick and mortar with glass inset into the outer walls, three brick-and-stucco doorways with pyramidal tops carrying stucco figures of Indra on Erawan and Brahma on a hamsa, and four corner chedis. The university library's database gives the hall as roughly nine by fourteen metres and the corner chedis as about two metres square and seven tall.
Interior murals of the Vessantara Jataka, painted by local southern artisans in natural pigment.
The principal Buddha image, bronze, in the meditation posture.
The riverside setting on Khlong U-Taphao, and a rain tree on the grounds recorded as over a century old.
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 working village monastery. Shoulders and knees covered, shoes off in the ordination hall and on the wooden pavilion floors. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Tambon Mae Thom, Amphoe Bang Klam, on the bank of Khlong U-Taphao roughly twelve kilometres north of Hat Yai. Note that Tambon Khu Tao in Amphoe Hat Yai is a different place and will send you to the wrong district. |
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.
No, and the distinction matters. What the temple received is an Honourable Mention in the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation in 2011 — a competitive annual award for completed restoration projects, run from UNESCO's Bangkok office. The World Heritage List is a separate thing entirely, a treaty instrument under the 1972 Convention, and Wat Khu Tao is not on it. Several Thai popular accounts call the temple มรดกโลก, world heritage, and that is an error this guide does not repeat.
The award citation describes a wooden pavilion of eighteenth-century date that had deteriorated to complete ruin and was rebuilt in a technically competent manner, relying mainly on local builders using traditional materials and vernacular techniques, with educational institutions and technical specialists supporting the work. The citation also notes that the project drew enough support from the surrounding community to lead on to the restoration of other historic buildings in the monastery. Which of the temple's wooden sala is meant is not stated in local terms by any source read here.
Tambon Mae Thom, Amphoe Bang Klam, Songkhla, on the bank of Khlong U-Taphao about twelve kilometres north of Hat Yai. This needs saying because there is also a Tambon Khu Tao in Amphoe Hat Yai — a different subdistrict in a different district — and directions that aim at the name rather than the address will land you in the wrong place. Both the government tourism directory and the Prince of Songkla University library's database place the temple in Mae Thom.
Community and university local-knowledge accounts place its establishment in the Ayutthaya period and conventionally date it to B.E. 2299 (1756), with the ordination hall completed only in B.E. 2445 (1902). None of those dates was read in a state register for this page, and the abbot list that accompanies them gives a first incumbency running from 1756 to 1852, which is long enough to warrant caution. The one date with a documentary anchor is the pavilion's eighteenth-century attribution in the UNESCO award citation.
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 Songkhla’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.