Wat Sawang Arom (Rawai Temple)

Many things in life are easily missed if you keep to the main roads. You gotta take time to smell the roses. Take the road less travelled, explore the side streets. There really is no hurry. The temple at Rawai Beach is called Wat Sawang Arom. It's only about half a kilometer from the sea, but is off the main road that runs from Chalong to Rawai. You can't see the temple from the road, only the entrance...



• See location of this temple on Google Earth

Like many of these backroad temples, I have driven past on countless occasions, but never ventured inside. In the last couple of years, mainly due to this blog and my pledge to blog all Phuket temples (eventually), I have tried to find a few free minutes in life. It's always worth the effort, worth stopping for a while and visiting a small temple.

Wat Sawang Arom is not a large temple. It was built to serve the small local Rawai community, including the Wat Sawang Arom school which among it's students are sea gypsy children who were affected by the 2004 tsunami. As I walked around one morning, the school assembly was in progress. I could hear a cute voice doing a solo on the national anthem. The temple and school were quiet except that one voice.





I do love temple architecture. There is so much detail and colour in every temple, and each temple has something different. Great for photos!



Temple walls often feature the 8 spoked wheel known as the Dharma wheel. The eight spokes represent the noble eightfold path of Buddhism.



  



Inside the temple, aside from several Buddha images, the walls are covered with painted scenes showing the life of the Buddha.



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• Rawai Beach
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