Phra Thong Temple is one of the oldest temples on the island of Phuket, built at a time when Thalang was the capital of the province. The construction of the temple is shrouded in a mystical and rather sinister story.
Once upon a time in Thalang there lived a young shepherd. One day he went to the meadow to graze his buffalo and saw a peg sticking out of the ground on a hillock, to which he tied the animal. When he came home in the evening, the young shepherd was struck down by a strange illness and died very quickly, and after him his buffalo died as well.
The boy's grief-stricken father soon had a strange dream, as if a golden statue of Buddha were buried in the meadow. The next day he gathered the neighbors, and they went to look for this hillock. When the Thais began to dig up the ground, it turned out that the man's dream had been prophetic - that peg to which his son had tied the buffalo was the top of Buddha's headdress.
But the statue of Buddha once again showed its mystical properties: the villagers never managed to dig it out completely; at times wild wasps attacked them, and at times something else happened. In the end, the people decided not to anger the deity any further and left the statue excavated up to the chest. Around the statue they erected Phra Thong Temple, which became a place of pilgrimage for monks and believers.
Phra Thong Temple is distinguished by exquisite and refined architecture - carved, richly decorated pagodas and gazebos, slender columns, and pointed spires adorn the temple grounds. There is also a museum here, opened on the initiative of the abbot; it contains antique vases and dishes, clothing, ancient weapons, books, and other relics from the daily life of monks and townspeople.
