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Million Beer Bottle Temple

In Thailand

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Using Bottles As Bricks, With Divine Imagination

The beer bottle temple in Thailand is a breathtaking achievement. Each frame in this video is simply beautiful to behold.

The Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew temple is about 400 miles northeast of Bangkok in the city of Khun Han close to the Cambodian border. Using Heineken bottles (green) and Chang Beer bottles (brown) the monks built a complex of around 20 buildings.

There is a main temple over a lake, a crematorium, prayer rooms, a hall, water tower, tourist bathrooms and several small bungalows which serve as the monks' quarters.

Recycling doesn't stop at building the temple's buildings. Mosaics around the temple, predominantly of Buddha, are made out of bottle caps.

Besides being ego-friendly, the beer bottles don't fade, they provide good lighting and are easy to clean.

The monks at Wat Lan Kuad started collecting the bottles they needed to build their temple complex in 1984, and kept going until they had over one million recycled bottles ready to construct their pagodas and temple.

Representing the cleansing of the human mind, the beer-bottle-temple is now on an approved list of eco-friendly sightseeing tours in South-East Asia.

It is astounding what inspired minds can do with garbage!

--Bibi Farber