AT A GLANCE
Why go?
Wat Ban Thanon Hak (วัดบ้านถนนหัก) is a quiet village Buddhist temple in the hamlet of Ban Thanon Hak, in Ban Mai subdistrict of Nong Bun Mak District, Nakhon Ratchasima Province, in the northeast of Thailand. Plain and unassuming in itself, it draws attention because of where it sits: its grounds are scattered with carved sandstone blocks, and only about 200 metres away stands Prasat Hin Ban Thanon Hak, a small 11th-century Khmer sanctuary. A stop here pairs a living rural monastery with one of Khorat's lesser-known ancient monuments.↗↗
The wat belongs to the Mahanikai order and is a wat rat, a "common" temple supported by the local community rather than the state, with the usual working buildings of a village monastery—a sermon hall and monks' quarters. What makes it distinctive is the archaeology underfoot and next door, the traces of the old Khmer presence that long predates the Buddhist temple here.↗
A Village Temple with Khmer Roots
Nong Bun Mak lies in the rolling rice country southeast of Khorat city, an area threaded with Khmer-era sanctuaries that mark the reach of the old Angkorian world into the Korat plateau. Ban Thanon Hak is one such pocket. The name itself preserves the memory: "Thanon Hak" means "broken path," recalling a raised, ditch-bordered causeway that water has cut into over the centuries. The Buddhist temple now shares this landscape with the stone monument it grew up beside.
