AT A GLANCE
Why go?
Wat Pa Phu Yang Diao is a small Dhammayut forest monastery perched on a hilltop in Nikhom Kham Soi District, Mukdahan Province, northeastern Thailand. Known locally by the name rendered in English as "Wat Phyangdio," the temple sits amid a wind farm landscape where towering turbines turn slowly above rolling farmland, and the summit offers sweeping panoramic views across three provinces.↗↗
Officially registered as a temple in January 2016, Wat Pa Phu Yang Diao received a significant honour in May 2023 when the Governor of Mukdahan presided over a ceremony to mark its royal ordination boundary — a royal decree (Wisungkhamsima) that formally consecrates the monastery's ubosot site. The temple currently maintains five resident monks under the leadership of Phra Achan Anok Thittayano.↗↗
A Hilltop Temple Among the Wind Turbines
The journey up to Wat Pa Phu Yang Diao is part of its charm. The road winds through the ridgeline on the border where Mukdahan meets Yasothon and Roi Et provinces, and along the way you pass row after row of enormous white wind turbines — part of a wind farm that harnesses the steady breezes blowing across this elevated corridor of the Phu Phan mountain range. The temple buildings emerge almost unexpectedly from the forested hillside: simple structures housing Buddha images, some already complete, others still under construction, their clean lines set against the backdrop of open sky.
