I have decided to visit Soc Trang because it has a boat connection to Con Dao Island. I have been to Con Dao before via Vung Tau, so I thought that I should try this route instead and while searching about Soc Trang I discovered that the city might be worth a visit, and for me it was.
Soc Trang has some beautiful temples and that’s the highlight of the city: temples. Trust me, I have seen hundreds of temples in Southeast Asia, but these ones seemed to be worth a visit. I decided to give it a try as I liked what my research was revealing.
So, first of all, Soc Trang has a lot of temples surely, but they are not all worth a visit. There are some that are big attractions and I made sure to visit them. Major attractions to Vietnamese obviously haha. I haven’t seen a foreigner during this day exploring temples in Soc Trang. I walked around at dusk on one of the days, and I could clearly see that this town doesn’t see foreign guests very frequently. The way people follow me with their eyes tells it all. I even got some compliments and a couple of people talked to me and asked me why am I visiting Soc Trang, as they seemed to be surprised about my travel choice.
The city was pretty calm, there were some nice light decorations and some street food that I ended up enjoying. At night I simply sat on the sidewalk like a local enjoying my bubble tea. There is one Vietnamese dish from Soc Trang that I decided to try. It is called Banh Cong and consists of a fried shrimp cake served with leaves, rice paper, and fish sauce, of course. It was delicious! Give it a try!
I spent only 1 day in Soc Trang exploring temples and it was enough. I started in the morning and ended at sunset. In total, I have visited 7 temples, but there are some that are not as worthy. I would say that two of them were stunning and the other ones were still beautiful, but compared to the best ones, not so amazing…
Soc Trang was part of Cambodia back in the day, so many of these temples still show this heritage. They resemble Cambodian temples and don’t look Vietnamese at all. That’s probably why they attract many Vietnamese tourists. I rented a motorbike at the guesthouse for 150K dong a day and 20K gas was enough to explore all these temples. They also have an option to rent a manual motorbike for 100K dong/day.
So, here is the list of temples I have visited in Soc Trang that you should consider having a look at. I started with the most beautiful one and that was probably not a good idea because the other ones ceased to amaze me after this one haha. Leave the best for last they say- I agree in this case otherwise, it will outshine the other temples which are beautiful too.
Sro Loun Pagoda ( Chen Kieu Pagoda)
You might see beautiful photos of temples in Soc Trang, and it may seem like there are a lot of different temples to explore, but that is not the case. Only in this complex, there are at least 3 stunning buildings. So, this is a big complex with different buildings. It was the biggest of the day and the one that took longer to visit. I actually spent a lot of time here admiring all the details. I was absolutely mesmerized. The color combos were killing me. I was so overwhelmed by all those colors that I didn’t even know where to look first haha. What a colorful place! I might have seen lots of temples, but this one was able to amaze me.
I have never seen a temple with those shades of blue and pink, or a temple with plates and bowls as part of the walls. What stunning architecture WOW. This temple alone was already worth my trip to Soc Trang. I love colors, and colors excite me, I was truly happy surrounded by such a colorful place! There are different buildings but the star of the show is the one to my left as I enter the area. The checkered floor gives it such a fun twist! This place is absolutely photogenic!! I Loved it!
There were some kids playing around and came to ask me for money as soon as they saw me. I give no money to kids EVER! But they kept on following me. Once I started talking to them in English they seemed confused haha. They kept on laughing and laughing as I was pronouncing words they had never heard in their life. It was funny tho cause they were enjoying their time chasing the foreigner. There are a lot of places to eat around this area and many locals sell food on the sidewalk. Might be a good stop to eat something.
Tac Gong Temple
From Chen Kieu Pagoda, I rode my rented motorbike to Tac Gong Temple which is clearly Cambodian as even Cambodian characters can be seen written on the walls. This temple was not that amazing but still pretty cool. Very Angkor Wat-like architecture and some vegetation growing on top to make it even more cool. I love it! The colors are bright red and yellow mostly. This one is clearly not such a tourist attraction. There was no one visiting Tac Gong Temple besides me. I still found it pretty but didn’t take long to stroll around and move on to the next one. The street from Chen Kieu Pagoda to Tac Gong Temple was beautiful though, and peaceful, as I mostly rode among rice fields and very green surroundings.
Wath Peam Buone Thmay
Next on my list was Wath Peam Buone Thmay a temple with unusual architecture on this side of the world. There were some people visiting it when I was there and I think this temple attracts attention due to its unusual architecture. There is this golden and white building that resembles more of Middle Eastern architecture, I would say. This was what attracted me to visit. It is beautiful indeed but not that imponent. Quite small actually and there wasn’t much more to see besides the white and gold building, as they were still building a new temple by it when I visited. It seems to be a pretty recent construction though. It was nice to check it anyway. I had nothing else to do but see temples haha.
Needless to say, it didn’t take long to visit. On to the next, that was my second favorite.
Chua Som Rong (som rong pagoda)
Wow, this one also made the visit to Soc Trang worth it! There is this beautiful colorful building I see as as I arrive. What a stunner. I was already excited by this sight. Such a colorful place, with so many details... wonderful to look at. Next to it is a huge reclining Buddha statue. Not sure if it is bigger than the biggest one I have seen so far, in Bago, Myanmar. Probably not.
This statue is huge and under it lays a stunning corner. So beautiful! It is absolutely white and golden, no more colors were used to paint this spot. There are dozens of imponent columns that turn this area into a “PHOTOSHOOT CORNER”. Everybody is taking pictures as the place deserves to do. Very beautiful. And just like the first temple of the day, this one attracts many local tourists, or even Cambodians I’m not sure, but there were a lot of people wearing traditional Cambodian clothes and taking pictures. There were lots of food offers and souvenirs, too. This is clearly a touristy spot and it deserves the attention given, to be honest. There are also some different buildings to explore so take some time to visit Som Rong temple. I stayed quite a while admiring its beauty.
Chua La Han
After this stunner, I visited another temple that was not that far away. It is tucked in an alley between houses and after the major 2 temples I have seen that day, this one didn’t surprise me. It is built in a totally different architectural style from what I have been seeing all day long. This one is typically Vietnamese! There were a few people visiting it, probably because of the nice little area around it. There is this pond with nice bridges and a sort of “fake cave” which attracts visitors and attracted me too. It was a nice quiet spot, but not really worth a lot of time. Here I met some locals who kept following me and saying I looked cute, so we ended up taking photos together haha they were funny.
After this temple, I kinda struggled to decide where to go. It was still early and I could visit something else, even though I knew I had seen the best already. I decided finally to go to Lien Hoa Bao Thap.
Lien Hoa Bao Thap
From the last temple, I headed to Lien Hoa Bao Thap, a construction I saw from the bus when I was on my way to Soc Trang. So, this place is under construction still, but even like this, it receives visitors. This will be a massive attraction in the future! The area is huge and there is a huge space reserved for local shops. Everything is very well organized and clean. The place is obviously preparing to receive large amounts of people. The temple is unlike something I have seen before. It has a lotus flower shape, but it is still under construction and it wasn’t ready to visit inside. Around this flower is a big garden area with beautiful gardens and what seemed to be a small roller coaster haaa not sure tho. There was a small man-made waterfall too and the entrance was pretty cool in a lotus flower shape either. Might be worth a visit in the future. Oh, there was a tortoise pond near the toilets…
Chua Doi or Bat temple
And, the 7th and last temple of the day was this one, most known as the Bat temple. And why is it known as a bat temple? Because there is a colony of big fruit bats living in the trees within the temple area. This is also the reason why I left this temple for last, near sunset time. I thought that around sunset the bats would start flapping around and some sort of wildlife show could be seen. I was wrong though haha. I saw the bats up in the trees. In fact, it was easy to find them because their sounds were loud, and in the distance, I knew already that the bats were around. They were just hanging in the trees and occasionally flying in circles, a bunch of them. Really lots of bats flying above me. It was cool to see.
Besides the bats, there is a pond and a temple that seems to be old and again, Cambodian-like. It is a pretty temple that is surrounded by trees. Very peaceful! But maybe visiting it at dusk wasn’t such a good idea because it was teaming with mosquitos OMG I got so many mosquito bites in there. In fact, I left this temple earlier cause I wasn’t willing to handle so many mosquitos biting me all at once. Absolutely miserable OMG not sure if it was because there are bats living in there…
There was also a small stage with people playing some instruments and lots of devotees making their offerings. Some people were chilling by the pond too. This one is also obviously a tourist attraction as there were several people selling their products at the entrance.
And I decided to end my day here. This temple was also the closest to the city center so it was convenient to end the day. I saw all the temples I wanted and I was very happy I decided to dedicate a day to explore Soc Trang. It ended up surprising me.
