Wat Phra Yai

This guide to Wat Phra Yai in Pattaya explains why a bronze Confucius and a bell cast like one in Beijing's Forbidden City stand halfway up a staircase of golden naga serpents leading to one of Thailand's largest Buddha statues. It traces the hill back to a 1940s fishing village and the wooden temple that served it, then to the late 1970s decision to build something the growing resort could see from the water. The seven-headed serpents under the handrails are guardians of water in Thai myth, a nod to the fishermen who prayed here first.