Wat Samakee Sattharam Samut Sakhon

Posted on March 25, 2010 by Mike

Information and Directions:

Wat Samakee Sattharam(วัดสามัคคีศรัทธาราม) is located in the suburbs of the city of Samut Sakhon, Thailand. It is a common Wat and lacks an ubosoth or bot. The only notable buildings are a wihan that contains several Buddha icons and a shrine to a locally revered monk. There is quite a large area set aside for accommodation for the monks, it contains several Kuti both individual and in two blocks.

Unfortunately the state of repair of the Wat is poor and the area is not well maintained with lots of rubbish and pollution around. One interesting find was a small freshwater crocodile that the monks kept in a pond. These reptiles are extremely rare in Thailand and endangered.

My main reason for visiting this temple was because it is the local temple to my Thai partners family and we attended the funeral of her father there. This gave me a good opportunity to observe Buddhist funeral rites first hand. There is also a crematorium on site for this purpose.

Wat Samakee Sattharam is located on the East bank of the Tha Chin River which enters the Gulf of Thailand at Samut Sakhon. The temple is opposite Wat Suthiwararam which is on the West bank of the river.

GPS co-ordinates: 13.529992 + 100.281694

Opinion:

Probably not a temple to go out of your way to visit since it is more functional than photogenic. It was however interesting for me since I spent the best part of two days at Wat Samakee Sattharam which was quite enlightening from a Buddhism perspective. The monks were very friendly although none of them spoke English.

Last Visited: January 2010.

View Wat Samakee Sattharam on a map of the area.

Related posts:

  1. Wat Suthiwararam Samut Sakhon
  2. Wat Lang San Prasit Samut Sakhon
  3. Wat San Chao Phanthai Norasing Samut Sakhon
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  • http://www.photocaption.org martyn

    Mike what struck me about the photos was the amount of flowers in them. Plenty of red and yellows. How can I not comment on the cat, excellent picture and my favourite of the bunch.

    Your write up smacks of Wat Samakee Satthara not being overly maintained. That points to a lack of outside visitors both Thai and tourist. The evidence of a lack of tourists visiting the Wat is backed up by the monks being unable to speak English.

    Sometimes these older, neglected type of places are fascinating to see. Crocodiles…they must have made it all worthwhile.

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/12855751155187200700 Mike Rose

    Martyn all the flowers were for Pearn's funeral. I just spotted the cat when looking around one of those lucky moments.

    The Wat is more functional than photogenic and certainly suffers from a lack of funding.

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