AT A GLANCE
Why go?
Wat Pa Atulo Boonyalak is a forest temple (wat pa) of the Dhammayut order in Sanom District, Surin Province, rooted in the Thai Forest Meditation tradition founded by the revered Luang Pu Dun Atulo. Established in the early 1940s on what was once an overgrown public cemetery, the monastery carries the names of both the great meditation master and the Boonyalak family whose faith and generosity made it possible.↗↗
Today the temple remains a working monastic community offering a peaceful rural setting for meditation, merit-making, and quiet reflection—far from the tourist crowds of Surin's better-known sites.↗
Good to know
- Buddhist temple
- Open daily6 AM–7:30 PM
- Under 1 kmfrom Sanom District center
- Wheelchair accessentrance
- Parking
- Restroom
- 4.7 / 516 reviews
- Sanom District
Origins in the Forest Tradition
The story of Wat Pa Atulo Boonyalak begins with Luang Pu Dun Atulo (1888–1983), one of the two first disciples of Ajahn Mun Bhuridatto—the patriarch who revived forest-dwelling meditation practice across Isan in the early twentieth century. After nineteen years wandering the jungles of Thailand and Cambodia, Luang Pu Dun settled at Wat Burapharam in Surin town in 1934, serving as its abbot for the rest of his life. He was simultaneously district-level monastic administrator of Rattanaburi, and in that capacity he frequently visited the villages of Sanom and Tha Tum for meditation retreats.
