AT A GLANCE
Why go?
Wat Plak Pru (วัดปลักปรือ) is a quiet village temple of the Mahanikaya order set in the rice-country of Tambon Muang Tia, in Mae Lan District of southern Pattani. Registered as a private temple in 1984, it is not a grand monument but a working wat at the heart of the area's small Thai-Buddhist community — a place of daily merit-making, festivals and local gatherings along Rural Road 2033.↗↗↗
What gives Wat Plak Pru its appeal is exactly that role. Pattani's Mae Lan district is overwhelmingly Malay-Muslim, and temples like this one are anchors for Buddhist families who have kept their faith and their villages alive here for generations. Visitors come to see an unpretentious rural temple with its own ordination hall (ubosot), monk quarters and a calendar of community ceremonies, rather than a packaged tourist sight.↗↗
A temple rooted in the local community
Wat Plak Pru is listed as a wat rat — a privately maintained village temple rather than a royal or state temple — belonging to the mainstream Mahanikaya school. The temple was formally established on 20 June 1984 and received its visungkhama sima, the royal endorsement marking the sacred boundary of its ordination hall, on 1 February 1990. These dates tell you the wat is a relatively young community foundation in this part of the deep south, grown from a local Buddhist settlement rather than an ancient seat.
