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.

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)

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)

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 man carries his dog as he prays during Vesak Day, an annual celebration of Buddha's birth, enlightenment and death, at Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon temple in Ayutthaya, Thailand, May 10, 2017. (Photo by Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)

Buddhist novice poses for a picture while monks gather to receive alms at Wat Phra Dhammakaya temple, in what organizers said was a meeting of over 100,000 monks, in Pathum Thani, outside Bangkok April 22, 2016. (Photo by Jorge Silva/Reuters)