It is an extraordinary sight located on a hilltop some 35km's South of Bung Kan, Nong Khai.
Wat Phu Tok has been developed more recently into a meditation temple/wat.
There are around fifty or so monks there, living in their scattered huts perched high above some of the breathtaking cliffs surrounding the area.
The view of the hillside comes into sight long before you get near to it, its sheer red face sandwiched between green natural vegetation on the slopes nearer the ground and large groups of trees on the narrow green plateau above.
As you get closer, the horizontal white lines across the cliffs reveal themselves to be painted wooden walkways, built to give the temple seven levels to represent the seven stages of enlightenment.
In an extremely ornamental garden located at the bottom, reflected in a small lake, an elegant, incongruously modern marble chedi commemorates Phra Ajaan Juen, the famous meditation master who founded the wat in 1968 and died in a plane crash ten years later. Within the chedi, the monk's books and other belongings, and diamond-like fragments of his bones, are preserved in a small shrine.
The first part of the ascent of the outcrop takes you to the third level up a series of long, sometimes slippery, wooden staircases, the first of many for which you'll need something more sturdy than flip-flops on your feet. A choice of two routes – the left fork is more interesting – leads to the fifth and most important level, where the Sala Yai houses the temple's main Buddha image in an airy, dimly lit cavern.
The artificial ledges that cut across the northeast face are not for the fainthearted, but they are one way of getting to the dramatic northwest tip here on level five: on the other side of a deep crevice spanned by a wooden bridge, the monks have built an open-sided Buddha viharn under a huge anvil rock (though the gate to the viharn is usually
locked).
This spot affords stunning views over a broad sweep of countryside and across to the second, uninhabited outcrop.
The flat top of the hill forms the seventh level, where you can wander along overgrown paths through thick forest.
Getting to Wat Phu Tok isn't easy – the location was chosen for its isolation, after all – but the journey out gives you a slice of life in remote countryside.
The best option is to hire a motorbike in Nong Khai, as it's a real slog by public transport: change buses at Bung Kan, catching one of the half-hourly buses south along Route 222 towards Pang Khon; get off after 25km at Ban Siwilai from where songthaews make the hour-long, twenty-kilometre trip east to Phu Tok either when they gather a full complement of passengers (more likely in the morning) or under charter (around B200).
It's not possible to stay at Wat Phu Tok or in the attached village (Ban Siwilai has a couple of very basic hotels if you get really stuck), though food is available: just outside the grounds, a collection of foodstalls and a simple restaurant dish up the usual noodles and grilled chicken.
Wat Phu Tok, Nong Khai is an exclusive hilltop and best meditation retreat. It is also known as the Lonely Hill. In this holy retreat more than 50 monks reside in huts set atop the red cliffs. Located 170 km away from Nong Khai, this holy temple gives enlightening experiences to visitors and travelers. On getting closer to this holy temple, the colored wooden pathway will show you seven levels. These seven levels stand for seven phases of enlightenment or
nirvana.
After passing through the spiral ways, you will come across the third level and from there a way to left direction will take you to the fifth level. In this fifth level or Sala Yai, you can see the main image of Buddha in a cavern.
Once you pass through each level representing some or the other states of Nirvana through images or other symbols, you will come to the last level that is the seventh one. All the previous six levels were wooden stages but this last stage is a flat top of the hill. This seventh level lets you wander along the path abounding in natural growth through dense jungle. According to Buddhist theories last level of life is always covered alone so this last level has not been provided any covering.
To say it so, Wat Phu Tok located on the eastern side of Nong Khai Province and being close to the riverside town of Beung Kan will make your journey easy and pleasant.
Written and photographed by Dave Cummings
- not that they think about such things here in LOS. 
