Wat Thepnimit

Wat Thepnimit (or Thep Nimit) is about 3km outside Phuket town on the road to Chalong (Chao Fa Road) in Tambon (sub district) Wichit. You can't see the temple from the road, though the entrance is quite obvious. The temple is behind Thepnimit School. When I visited yesterday morning, kids were arriving for school...



The temple was very quiet, as the local temples normally are. It's not a large temple, but as always I found some points of interest (if you like temples!). The main building was locked, as they often are - the local temples are not normally open 24-7.





Normally the temples have a kind of bell tower. Here the bell was in something like a pagoda, brightly painted with pictures of lotus flowers.

I had read on another website a story about a new chedi built at Wat Thepnimit about 3 years ago to house what is described as "Buddha’s relics". It seems many local people helped to build this new golden Chedi which is about 8 meters high and very golden indeed!



The Monks houses here looked very simple and there were cats and chickens running around all over the grounds.



You find "holy trees" all over Thailand with cloth tied around them and Buddha images placed among the roots. Here's one at Thepnimit temple:



Some of those cats I mentioned decided I was worth following. Maybe they are used to someone bringing them food. One cat would not sit still for a photo. If I moved back a meter to take a picture, it followed...



Then found a friend...



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