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Note:
The prices are min low-season rates & subject
to change.
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Pra Tong
Temple
Located north
of Thalang and about 20 km from Phuket Town, Wat Pra Tong
is the oldest temple on the island and was created when Thalang
was still Phuket's capital.
The shrine
encloses a golden statue of Buddha that is said to have emerged
from beneath the ground long ago. The extraordinary legend
is of a young boy who tied up his buffalo to what he thought
was a post. Unfortunately, after doing so, he fell down in
agony and died. His father dreamed that the reason his son
had died was because he had committed the sin of tying a filthy
buffalo to a sacred object: that what the boy thought was
a post was in reality the golden peak of the Buddha's conical
cap. He told his neighbors about the dream and they went out
to excavate the post and discovered it was the decorative
topknot of a buried golden Buddha. They were able to unearth
no more than the upper part of the image, over which they
constructed the present chapel. Burmese invaders attempted
to remove the image in 1785 but failed when vicious hornets
swarmed and stung them.
After this
the villagers decided to protect their miraculous statue by
covering the part that stuck up from the ground with a plaster
cast of Buddha's head and shoulder's, which is the way it
is today.
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