Yesterday, on Tuesday, we traveled to Petchabun to the temple of the 5 Headed Budda (Wat Pha Sorn Kaew).
The temple is located on an 830-meter mountain peak in the Khao Kho district of Phetchabun Province, Thailand.
While it is sometimes casually described as a “5-headed Buddha” due to how it appears from a distance, it is actually a magnificent monument of five pristine white Buddha statues nested or tiered together in a row, ascending in size from the smallest in front to the largest at the back.
Even though we arrived around 8:30 AM, we were surprised to see many people.
By 10 AM, the place had become overloaded with Thai tourists.
My initial impression was most of the Thai Tourists were most interested in “Look At Me Selfies” than they were with the temple itself.
The entire 3 hours I was there, I counted exactly 3 foreigners only.
There is only a single lane into the temple and traffic can get backed up a long, long ways.
By the time we left, the line to get into the temple parking, which costs only 30 thb, was 100’s of cars long.
I would suggest if you are planning a visit to get there no later than 8 AM!
For a week day, it was just shocking how many people were actually visiting?
I imagine on a Saturday or weekend, the place is just a complete madhouse?
All of the tourist attractions around Khao Kao are extremely busy and with it can get busy with traffic.
The idea of these attractions is to make money and they are making a lot of money, which means, a lot of Thai tourists.
Once these locations are discovered, they spread like wildfire on social media and become over-run with Thai tourists.