Buddhist temple built out of one million beer bottles

A temple has been built by monks in northeast Thailand who used over a million recycled beer bottles to make the walls and roof. Buddhist monks have recycled over one million used bottles to build their temple in Khun Han, Thailand near the Cambodian border

Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew, also known as Wat Lan Kuad or 'the Temple of a Million Bottles', is in Sisaket province near the Cambodian border, 400 miles from the capital Bangkok.The Buddhist monks began collecting bottles in 1984 and they collected so many that they decided to use them as a building material.

They encouraged the local authorities to send them more and they have now created a complex of around 20 buildings using the beer bottles, comprising the main temple over a lake, crematorium, prayer rooms, a hall, water tower, tourist bathrooms and several small bungalows raised off the ground which serve as monks quarters.The bottles do not lose their colour, provide good lighting and are easy to clean, the men say.

A concrete core is used to strengthen the building and the green bottles are Heineken and the brown ones are the Thai beer Chang.The monks are so eco-friendly that the mosaics of Buddha are created with recycled beer bottle caps.Altogether there are about 1.5 million recycled bottles in the temple, and the monks at the temple are intending to reuse even more. The beer bottle temple is now on an approved list of Eco-friendly sight-seeing tours in southeast Asia.

world's longest ear hair

His ear hair is 25cm long and still growing, but the grocer from India Radhakant Baijpai has no intention of trimming it, no matter what his wife says.

Officially recognised by Guinness in 2003 as having the longest ear hair in the world, Mr Radhakant has carefully coiffed his ear-follicles from what was a record-breaking 13.2cm to their current ear-itching length.Considered by Mr Radhakant, 58, to be symbol of luck and prosperity, his ear-hair has been growing since he was 18 and has never been cut.

Maintained by a specially prepared blend of herbal shampoo, Mr Radhakant has so far resisted the pleas of his long suffering wife to cut it off.Mr Radhakant has even stopped wearing rings, so as not to catch his hair and run the risk of losing out on his record.

''I am sure that no one in the world has ear-hair longer than mine and my hair is almost double the length of the first record I set in 2003.......We are currently waiting for confirmation from Guinness that my ear hair, which stands at 25cm is now the new standard for men with extreme ear hair.''