★★Worth it·Tattoo temple
Wat Bang Phra
วัดบางพระ
The sak yant temple — monks hand-tattoo protective yantra, and Wai Khru (Feb or March) brings thousands back.
The sak yant temple in Nakhon Chai Si, where monks hand-tattoo protective yantra with steel rods — and the Wai Khru festival, in February or March by the lunar calendar, brings thousands back to recharge them, some entering trance. Tattoos are by donation; go early, queue long, decide soberly.
Wittyoil CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wittyoil CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · resized · tap to enlarge
Visiting
- Open
- daily
- Entry
- FreeFree entry. For a sak yant, buy the temple's offering set (flowers, incense, cigarettes), reported at about ฿150, and add a donation. Nothing is fixed-priceReported by visitors and guides, not by the venue.
- Dress
- Shoulders and knees covered
- Allow
- 1–3 h (tattoo queue)
No official opening hours published — check on the day.
Checked 10 Oct 2026 against openstreetmap.org, wikidata.org, thaiholidayguide.com, outthailand.com. Things change: closures for royal ceremonies and holidays are common.
Visiting a temple
- Shoulders and knees covered, for everyone. Sarongs are usually available at the gate, sometimes for a small deposit.
- Shoes come off before you step into an ordination hall — watch what everyone else is doing at the threshold.
- Most compounds open early, around 08:00, and close by 17:00–18:00; the major ones charge foreign visitors a small entry fee.
- Early morning is cooler, quieter and far better light than midday.
Check current entry fee and today's closing time when you arrive — we have no verified official site for this one.
Getting there
No station within easy walking distance — this one is a taxi or boat trip.
Typical times, not a timetable · rail, boat and BRT routing runs right in the atlas.
Greater Bangkok — outside the city proper, worth the trip