What to do with all those empty beer bottles that accumulate every weekend? They found a very unique way of recycling them in Si, Khun Han District in Si Sa Ket, a small city in Isaan. They have built a wonderful little Buddhist Temple - Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew (Wat Lan Khuad).

​The temple is reportedly made of over 1.5 million empty Heineken and Chang beer bottles. The people of the area began collecting bottles began in 1984 and it took two years to build the main temple. The monks of the temple continued to expand the temple buildings, constructing them with more beer bottles and now there are as many as 20 bottle-constructed buildings.

​The vast majority of the Isaan area of Thailand is made up of farmland growing mostly rice, rubber trees and cassava with a healthy amount of various fruit orchards.  Much of this farmland is managed in smallish plots surrounding small villages.  The life in these villages is quite idyllic with crowing roosters waking the villagers up with sunrise, working a full hard day at the managing their crops in their plots and going to sleep soon after the setting sun.  

I found the daily movement of small herds of cattle and buffalo fascinating and took the video below.  The animals are taken out of small pens next to the village homes in the morning and herded into the fields that are not currently growing crops.  The herd owners stay with the animals all day and herded back to their pens in the evening, just before sundown. 

​Many of the small plots have sheds often made out of free simple materials like palm fronds and small trees made into posts which hold up the roof. These plants can be very picturesque with the greenery of the crop and the rustics sheds.