PHUKET: This weekend, Phuket is marking the birthday of the remarkable Luang Pu Supa with suitable ceremony.

To put it in modern-day Western terms, the man is no everyday monk. Luang Pu Supa is a legend.

People say he is either 115 or 116 years old this weekend, which would be a remarkable achievement in longevity, perhaps even making him the oldest living person in the world.

From all reports, though, Luang Pu Supa would not care two hoots whether he has achieved Guinness Book of Records status. Luang Pu Supa might just tell you, if asked, that such vanities as world records matter not.

Yet as a man who has led an exemplary life devoted to Buddhism since his youth, he remains singularly approachable. In his bedroom quarters, where he sleeps behind a large glass-panelled wall, visitors can meet him.

There is nothing pretentious about the venerable monk. He has a preference for cuddly stuffed toys, and beneath his saffron wrap, a pair of sheepskin slippers - probably from Australia - keep his 115 or 116 year-old tootsies warm.

Yesterday, VIPs from Bangkok and Phuket came calling at a temple in southern Phuket to wish him well, and to present him with an honorary PhD from the most prestigious university in the country, Chulalongkorn University.

Politicians, Phuket Governor Tri Augkaradacha and Phuket Police Commander Major General Pekad Tantipong were among hundreds who were there to mark the occasion. Today it will be the turn of hundreds, or perhaps even thousands, joining in the celebration of his remarkable life.

Just last year, he headed off from Phuket to Indonesia for an important religious confab, with just one monk for company. Indeed, what is really important in this remarkable life is how full of action it has been, and still is.

Luang Pu Supa has been the founder of 33 temples throughout Thailand, and that's what makes him so venerable and worthy of admiration. Phuket has been a large part of his life.

Of the 33 temples he has established, three are on Phuket. Koh Sireh temple, high on a hill to the east of Phuket City, beloved of local sea gypsies and Burmese, was the first.

Another Phuket hilltop, Kao Rang, is also graced with a Luang Pu Supa temple. And there is the 33rd, the temple at Chalong in southern Phuket, that has now been granted the name Siridilasuparam Temple by HM The Queen.

It's here at this temple on Phuket that Luang Pu Supa has chosen to live. A large circular stupa now under construction will eventually house his mortal remains.

But from his continued involvement in the good life, the really good Phuket life, that could be decades away.