With the Wat Samphran Temple, what you see is what you get: while a smattering of awed visitors across the web have expressed admiration for this impressive work of architecture, details such as when it was built, who designed it, or why this 17-story tower is in the clutches of a massive, beautiful dragon are nowhere to be found.

A Buddhist monk uses a traditional needle to tattoo the body of a man at Wat Bang Phra in Nakhon Pathom province on the outskirts of Bangkok, Thailand, March 18, 2016. Believers from across Thailand travel to the monastery to have their bodies adorned with tattoos and to pay their respects to the temple's master tattooist. They believe the tattoos have mystical powers, ward off bad luck and protect them from harm. (Photo by Chaiwat Subprasom/Reuters)

Wat Rong Khun (Thai: วัดร่องขุ่น), more well-known among foreigners as the White Temple, is a contemporary unconventional Buddhist temple in Chiang Rai Province, Thailand. It was designed by Chalermchai Kositpipat in 1997.

Monks take a tiger out of its cage for an afternoon walk June 5, 2001 at the Wat Pa Luangta Bua monastery in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

Pigeons fly out from the mouth of a giant Buddha statue at Wat Nam Daeng Buddhist temple in Chachoengsao province, east of the Thai capital Bangkok, on October 11, 2020. (Photo by Mladen Antonov/AFP Photo)

Floodwaters cover a Buddhastatue of at Wat Taku Buddhist temple in Bang Ban district in the central Thai province of Ayutthaya on November 14, 2025. (Photo by Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP Photo)

A Western honey bee feeds off acacia pollen at an apiary in Nagyszenas, eastern Hungary, 25 April 2020. The preparation of the bees for the acacia bloom began two weeks later than usual this year; due to the late frosts, this season's yield of Hungaricum acacia honey is expected to be lower. (Photo by Tibor Rosta/EPA/EFE)

Relatives of community leader Josemano “Badou” Victorieux, one of the victims of clashes with the Police, cry during his funeral in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 16 October 2019. The protest movement in Haiti completes a month with no sign of remitting and without the President, Jovenel Moise, yielding to the voices that require him to resign. (Photo by Orlando Barria/EPA/EFE)