Wat Chom Khiri Nak Phrot (Wat Khao)

Wat Chom Khiri Nak Phrot sits on top of Buat Nak Hill in Mueang Nakhon Sawan, wedged between the Dechatiwong Bridge and the Chira Prawat Camp. Most people in town just call it Wat Khao — “hill temple” — because it’s the temple that happens to sit on the hill, not because there’s a rival Wat Khao competing for the name nearby. Entry is free, and the grounds are open daily from 06:00 to 18:00.

The temple has carried several names across its history: Wat Lan Thom, Wat Khao Nakhon Sawan, and Wat Khao Bucha Nak under Rama IV, before King Rama V renamed it Wat Chom Khiri Nak Phrot. The story goes that his full royal entourage filed into the small hilltop ordination hall and somehow all fit — a detail locals still treat as a minor miracle, and the reason the hall is known around town as “the ordination hall the angels built.” Exactly how old the site is stays unsettled: some accounts trace it to the Dvaravati period, others credit a Burmese garrison with building a shrine here after the second fall of Ayutthaya. Neither claim is confirmed enough to state as fact.

One confirmed centrepiece sits near the summit: a Buddha footprint shrine. Once a year, in the twelfth lunar month (usually November), it’s regilded in a ceremony locals call the Wat Khao festival, which runs alongside long-boat races on the Chao Phraya below — worth timing a visit around if you’re in Nakhon Sawan that week. From the viewing terrace of Phra Chula Maha Chedi to the north, Wat Chom Khiri Nak Phrot is the hill visible to the south, a reminder that the two temples anchor opposite ends of town.

Getting here means a short taxi or motorbike ride from central Nakhon Sawan — there’s no public transport laid on, and the stairway up the hill is a genuine climb, so shoes with grip beat sandals. Cover shoulders and knees as at any Thai temple; this is a working monastery with resident monks, not a museum piece. Dechatiwong Bridge, under a kilometre away, is a useful landmark if you’re driving in — the temple hill is visible from the bridge itself.

Insider Tip: Go before 9 AM rather than in the afternoon heat — the stairway has no shade, and the Buddha footprint shrine draws a steady trickle of local worshippers making merit early rather than tour groups.