Drinking your way to nirvana?

Empty bottles are known to bring you in all kinds of states, but I've never considered reaching Nirvana to be possible by means of empty bottles. But in the Buddhist "Wat Pa Maha Chedio Kaew" temple
(nicknamed "Wat Lan Kuad" - meaning "Temple of Million Bottles") in the Sisaket province in Thailand, there seems to be a strong relation between emptying bottles, recycling and faith: the entire temple is built out of an estimated 1.5 million recycled bottles. And the bottles are literally everywhere: in the shelters, in the crematorium and in the toilets. And they are probably praying for more recycled bottles, since that allows them to built more edifices in the temple-complex.



It all started in 1984, when the Monks used bottles to decorate their shelters. It attracted more donations, allowing them to graduately built the temple as it stands today. And everything is recycled: even the caps are used in mosaics. It started out of necessity but developed into a nifty way of building with a spectacularly looking material - and maybe a future way to raise money for the temple by becoming a tourist destination?



I've found this remarkable building on inhabitat.com