Ibrahim Jabbari
When a group of monks in Si Sa Ket, a province located in southeastern Thailand, wanted to build a new temple, they sought the help of locals to provide them with building materials, according to Tourism Thailand. Their request: empty beer bottles.
Known as the Temple of a Million Bottles, Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew is comprised of approximately 1.5 million Heineken and Chang (a popular Thai lager) bottles. Since beginning the project in 1984, after Phra Khru Vivek Dharmajahn, the temple’s founder, happened upon a nearby dumping ground overflowing with tossed bottles, the monks have continually added new structures to the temple complex, constructing a chapel, water towers, a crematorium, housing for the monks and an entrance gate comprised of the green and brown glass bottles, writes The Nation.
