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Place of worship · เขตบางรัก, Bangkok
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Wat Hua Lamphong is a third-class royal monastery of the ordinary type in Bang Rak, pressed directly against Sam Yan station on the MRT Blue Line, and it is best known in Bangkok as a place to make merit by donating a coffin. The temple began as an ordinary community monastery called Wat Wua Lamphong. No record of its founding survives; the early Rattanakosin dating rests on the shape of the old ordination hall and of the temple's original chedi. Around B.E. 2447, 1904, King Chulalongkorn came to present kathin robes here, granted the temple the new name Wat Hua Lamphong, and conferred rank on the abbot, Phra Achan Singh, a well-known vipassana teacher of the day. On 18 July B.E. 2545, 2002, King Bhumibol Adulyadej raised the temple to royal monastery status. The compound also holds Wat Hua Lamphong School and the Ruamkatanyu Foundation.
Checked 2026-08-25 · Source
Two things fill the courtyard of Wat Hua Lamphong that fill no other temple courtyard in Bangkok quite this way. The first is the coffin merit: the recorded activities of the temple are donating coffins and redeeming the lives of cattle, and the Ruamkatanyu Foundation, one of the volunteer bodies that collects the dead from Bangkok's roads, is based in the same compound, so the donated coffins are used rather than symbolic. The second is the sheer adjacency of the modern city, since the temple's own neighbours are the Too Fast To Sleep co-working space next door and, straight across Rama IV Road, Samyan Mitrtown, Chamchuri Square and the Sam Yan church. Wat Hua Lamphong also carries a piece of Thai social memory: in May B.E. 2510, 1967, the bodies of Pranot Wisetphaet and Somchai Kaeochinda, a male couple, were laid in state here with their coffins placed side by side. The abbot since B.E. 2536, 1993, is Phra Thammasuthi, Narin Narintho.
Checked 2026-08-25 · Source
Allow forty minutes at Wat Hua Lamphong. Half an hour covers the courtyard, the ordination hall and the chedi at an unhurried pace; the extra ten minutes is for the coffin donation itself, which involves a desk, a queue that comes and goes, and a short rite, and which is the reason most Thai visitors are here at all. A visitor who only wants to look, and who is passing anyway because Sam Yan station is at the gate, can do it in twenty minutes.
Checked 2026-08-25
No opening or closing time is recorded for Wat Hua Lamphong, so plan for daylight and do not build an evening around an unverified figure. What can be said is that the temple stands in a student and office quarter, with Chulalongkorn University's edge and two large malls immediately across Rama IV Road, so the courtyard is at its busiest at lunchtime and in the hour after offices empty, and at its quietest in the middle of a weekday morning. Merit-making days draw crowds to the coffin desk. Because Sam Yan station is at the gate, this is an easy temple to fit into a gap rather than a temple to make a journey for.
Checked 2026-08-25
No admission is recorded for Wat Hua Lamphong and no admission figure could be sourced, because the temple publishes no operator site. What was checked: the domain wathualamphong.com, which is not the temple's and carries unrelated travel advertising; a search for a temple-run site under other likely domains, which returned none; and the Bang Rak district office page on the temple, which refuses automated requests. Thai Wikipedia lists the temple's only web presence as a Facebook page. The sums for a coffin donation are set at the temple's own desk and are not published in any sourceable form, so no figure is printed here.
Checked 2026-08-25
Wat Hua Lamphong stands at 728 Rama IV Road, Si Phraya subdistrict, Bang Rak district, Bangkok 10500. The simplest approach by far is Sam Yan station on the MRT Blue Line, which adjoins the temple, so the walk from the platform to the gate is measured in a couple of minutes rather than a couple of blocks. Coming on foot from the Chamchuri Square or Samyan Mitrtown side means crossing Rama IV Road, a wide and fast road best crossed at the signalled crossing. Note the trap in the name: Hua Lamphong railway station, which took the name from this district in 1890 and is the more famous holder of it, is about two kilometres away and is not the temple.
Checked 2026-08-25 · Source
Wat Hua Lamphong is a working funeral temple with a rescue foundation in the same compound, so a visitor may well walk into a family's funeral rather than a quiet courtyard. Keep well clear of any ceremony in progress, lower the voice, and do not treat mourners as scenery. Dress as for any Thai temple, with shoulders and knees covered. If making the coffin donation, transact at the temple's own office and take the receipt, rather than handing money to anyone who approaches in the courtyard. Because no opening hours are published for the temple, a gate or hall found closed is not an anomaly to argue with. Finally, do not confuse the temple with Hua Lamphong railway station when giving a destination to a taxi driver, because the two are two kilometres apart and share the name; say Wat Hua Lamphong, Rama IV, Sam Yan.
Checked 2026-08-25
No photography restriction is published for Wat Hua Lamphong, but one restraint applies without needing to be published: a funeral in progress is not photographed, and neither are the coffins waiting to be donated. What is worth the frame here is the collision of registers that no other Bangkok temple offers so bluntly, the gilded chedi and the temple roofs read against the glass face of Samyan Mitrtown across Rama IV Road. That shot works best from inside the compound looking out, in the late afternoon when the glass opposite is lit and the temple is not. Inside the ordination hall, ask a monk or a lay attendant before raising a camera.
Checked 2026-08-25
Coffin donation is one of the two merit activities Thai Wikipedia records for Wat Hua Lamphong, alongside redeeming the lives of cattle. The Ruamkatanyu Foundation, one of the volunteer bodies that collects the dead from Bangkok's roads, is based in the same compound, so donated coffins go to people who would otherwise have none.
Not recorded. Wat Hua Lamphong publishes no operator website, and no opening or closing time could be sourced from the temple itself; the domain wathualamphong.com is not the temple's. Plan a daylight visit rather than rely on an hour found on a listing site.
No, and the two are about two kilometres apart. Thai Wikipedia records that King Chulalongkorn built Thailand's first railway in B.E. 2433, 1890, and named the Bangkok station Hua Lamphong after the district; the temple, then still called Wat Wua Lamphong, was renamed Wat Hua Lamphong only around 1904.
Unrecorded, and the temple says so. No evidence of the founding survives; the presumed early Rattanakosin date is inferred from the shape of the old ordination hall and of the temple's original chedi. The temple was an ordinary community monastery named Wat Wua Lamphong before King Chulalongkorn renamed it.
Sam Yan station on the MRT Blue Line, which adjoins the temple compound. Wat Hua Lamphong stands at 728 Rama IV Road, Si Phraya subdistrict, Bang Rak, opposite Samyan Mitrtown and Chamchuri Square, so the walk from the platform to the temple gate takes a couple of minutes.
No admission is recorded, and no figure could be sourced because the temple publishes no operator site. Donations, including the sums for a coffin donation, are set at the temple's own desk and are not published anywhere sourceable, so no amount is printed here.
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