Wat Mahachai is the principal Buddhist temple of central Mahasarakham, a quiet compound a few hundred metres from the clock tower. The buildings are not architecturally remarkable — gilt-trimmed concrete and red roof tiles in the standard Thai Buddhist idiom — but the temple holds an unusually important collection of bai lan, the palm-leaf manuscripts in which Isan and Lao monastic scholarship was traditionally recorded. Some of the surviving leaves run back several centuries and have been the subject of academic study at the university.
For most visitors the practical interest is more modest. The temple is calm, you can walk in at any reasonable hour without ceremony, and there is usually a senior monk or a temple worker happy to point things out. Take off your shoes before entering the bot (ordination hall), keep your shoulders covered, and sit rather than stand when you are at floor level near the Buddha.