Su Tong Pae Bridge.

On a low hill among the paddies above the village, Phra Palat Chittaphat Akkapanyo founded Suan Tham Phu Sama on 20 March 2008, on about 6 rai, as a place for meditation, Dhamma training for villagers and students, and lodging for monks and novices. It has since grown to about 26 rai and become Wat Phu Sama Naram. Most buildings use local materials in a mixed Tai Yai–Burmese style, such as the "Ruean Pho Tham", a pavilion thatched with tong tueng leaves designed to the abbot's ideas. On the hill sits a crowned Burmese-style Buddha in the Mara-vijaya posture that villagers call "Phra Chao Phara Su Tong Pae" (Luang Pho Su Tong Pae), later given the formal name "Phra Phuttha Samakkhi Athitthan Maha Chakkraphat".

Between the temple and the village lie the Mae Sa-nga stream and the paddies, so every morning the monks on their alms round had to wade along muddy dikes, sometimes treading on villagers' seedlings. The abbot set out to build a bridge across the fields for the monks and for villagers coming to the temple.

Timber posts and a woven-bamboo deck built by monks and villagers · Photo: paularps

It was built entirely on faith. A landowner gave the land to the temple; villagers donated timber posts — many of them old house posts — along with bamboo, labour and money, with no government budget. The temple's own notices say work began on 20 April 2012 and, after about two and a half months, the bridge opened on 5 August 2012 (some sources give 2011). It cost about 800,000 baht; about 2 m wide and some 500 m long (not counting the path up to the temple), it uses timber posts and beams with a woven-bamboo deck, and is said to be the longest bamboo bridge in Thailand.

"Su Tong Pae" is Tai Yai for "a prayer fulfilled". As the story goes, the abbot vowed to build the Buddha image on the hill and to complete the bridge; when both were done, the name was given to the image and the bridge alike. People believe that a wish or merit made on the bridge will come true, and some call it "the bridge of merit and success".

The bridge became widely known after the 2015 Upper North tourism film "Su Tong Pae: Friendship, Prayer, Time" by Bundit Thongdee, which set off a trend of bamboo bridges across rice fields elsewhere; some compare it with the 1,200 m U Bein teak bridge at Amarapura in Myanmar. Fame brought problems too: visitors jumping and running wore out the bamboo deck faster, and photographers chased monks during the alms round, blocking their way or asking them to walk slowly for pictures. The temple, meanwhile, has kept its character as a Dhamma garden, with no donation boxes or loudspeakers urging people to give.

A bamboo bridge needs repairs almost every year. In 2015 part of it collapsed under too much weight, and it was rebuilt in 2016 with funds from the Mae Hong Son Provincial Administrative Organization and temple donations.

In the early hours of 9 September 2023, around 2:40 a.m., heavy rain sent the Mae Sa-nga into flood; the bridge broke in places and the whole structure was affected. On 15 September government agencies, businesses, the temple committee and villagers met at the temple and agreed to keep the original design — timber with woven bamboo — but make it stronger. Work began on 18 September, a fund-raising pha pa ceremony followed on the 24th, and villagers and soldiers finished in October, in time for the end of Lent: a chanting ceremony with 1,000 lamps on 13 October, alms-giving the next morning, then the Jong Phara procession, Ok Phansa, the Tak Bat Thewo alms-giving and the kathin ceremony on 28–31 October 2023.

More frequent floods are tied to changes in the waterway. Around 2023 a collapsed bank shifted the Mae Sa-nga's course, and a weir was built some four or five years before 2026. A farmer whose paddy lies under the bridge says the weir sits higher than the fields and silt builds up in front of it, so floodwater cannot drain and stands in the paddies for over a week, where it once drained within two days. Villagers of Pang Mu and Kung Mai Sak met and asked for the weir to be lowered.

The bridge with the hills of the Mae Hong Son valley · Photo: paularps

In 2026 the bridge was hit by two flash floods. Heavy rain in the Mae Sa-nga and Mae Sa-ngi headwaters raised the water on the night of 2 August; on the morning of 3 August logs and debris lodged at the bridge tilted the section over the Mae Sa-nga, so monks dismantled part of it and closed the crossing, helped by Pang Mu subdistrict staff and a police aviation unit clearing debris. A second flood on 13 August tore away more than 20 m. In the meantime the section over the fields stayed open for the view, but no one could cross to the temple.

In mid-September monks and novices, Kung Mai Sak villagers, soldiers and Volunteer Defence Corps members stripped out rotten bamboo, wove new panels and re-laid the sections that could be fixed first, while the temple asked for drinking water, food, cement and sand. Major repairs began on 21 September 2026, adding steel beams for strength and re-laying the bamboo deck in the original style, aiming to be ready for the end of Lent and the tourist season; new posts had to wait for the water to fall.

Su Tong Pae is still a place of merit for the community. Every morning around 6:00 the monks and novices of Wat Phu Sama Naram walk the bridge into the village, and on holy days there are big alms-givings on it — 29 monks and novices in thick mist on 1 January 2021, 35 on Khao Phansa, 14 July 2022, and 70 on Khao Phansa, 30 July 2026. At the end of Lent the Tai Yai also build "jong phara", bamboo-and-paper pavilions to welcome the Buddha back from the Tavatimsa heaven. Visitors can help look after the bridge by walking slowly, not jumping, and giving the monks room.