Wat Mongkolratanaram Tampa Buddhist Temple

As soon as we realized we were stranded in Tampa for more than a few days I started looking up things to do around this town.  I stumbled upon Wat Mondkolratanaram Temple.  The Yelp reviews of it said things like "unique experience" and "there's nothing like it".  My curiosity was peeked, but I didn't follow up on going here until the garage manager at Cummins printed out pages of things to do and this Buddhist Temple was among them.  He highly recommeneded it and so we went.



Here's what it is.  Every Sunday the Temple opens up to the public from 10am to 2pm.  The temple is located on the bank of a river and they set up vendors on the huge wrap around porch of one of the buildings on the compound.

There are these signs posted all over the grounds of the temple including the Meditation Garden.  

You can get various traditional Thai meals, noodle soups, desserts, juices, coffee, and more.  There are tons of tables and benches along the river where you can sit and enjoy this communal environment.  There are flowers and plants for sale and early on in the day there is usually some live music.  It gets very busy and they do run out of certain items as the day goes on.  Expect a crowd, but this is part of the charm.   We arrived on the later side, around 12:30 and the crowds were not too bad, but some of the food options were gone already.  

These are the huge vats of oil cooling down after hours of frying up sweet potato and plantains!! Yum! 

Chicken Curry with rice Vermicelli, sprouts, basil and carrots 

Fried Plantains and Sweet Potato,  

View of the River from our table.  

The best technique we discovered is to purchase your main food items and then get on the coconut custard line.  You grab a to-to box and scribble your name on it, pay and give the box back to the vendor.

You can return in 30 minutes or so and your custards will be waiting for you and you just scoop up your pre-written care package and enjoy!  

Coconut Custard.  Sweet and creamy. It's like having a nibble of Thailand in the palm of your hand.  

You are welcome to join the monks in the temple at 2pm for their service, but you'll have to leave your shoes outside!