Day 37 – Chiang Rai

Today we had another tour guide booked for the city of Chiang Rai. We woke up early again, but this time we could have breakfast at X Kingdom hostel. Once the tour guide came (again a few minutes late) we hopped into the full van.

Hot Springs

We drove on the bus for around 1 hour to the first pit stop, which was some hot springs along the way. This place appeared to be a typical stop over point, with food stalls, paid toilets, souvenir shops and heaps of buses. The hot springs themselves were super hot so my delicate toes couldn’t stay in the water, but my wife who is obviously the next Khaleesi had no issues. There was actually people boiling eggs in the hot springs which was cool. We had a butter roti instead which was nice.

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From there we drove to the White Temple, while our tour guide gave us heaps of information. The essence that went into my head, was that the White Temple was a private endeavour by an artist fully financed by Thais. Apparently foreign funding was outright refused. The temple was also built mainly as a tourist attraction.

White Temple

As we pulled up, the White Temple has clearly met its agenda, as it was surrounded by tourists. This is a Saturday, which made the tourist situation worse. That being said the temple is something worth seeing. This is not an ordinary temple.

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The magnificent structure is large and as soon as you enter, there are heaps of people queuing to take that perfect photo.

The temple is unique as besides the traditional Buddhist images inside, there are super heroes and even George Bush and Osama Bin Laden. I think it was a political stance from the artist. The rest of the temple grounds are very cool with the white theme used throughout. There is also an art gallery of the artists work. We ran out of time to see it completely, but what we saw was very impressive.

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We then proceeded across the road to have lunch at a local restaurant which was okay.

Blue Temple

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The Blue Temple was also an impressive temple complex, which was created by a student of the guy who created the White Temple, so you can again see, that the Blue Temple is not your typical temple. We didn’t get much time to spend here, but what we saw was impressive.

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Baandam Museum

We then proceeded to the final stop of the Chiang Rai tour which was the Baandam Museum a.k.a. Black Temple. I personally would have liked more time at the Blue Temple, but nevertheless, we walked around the museum and found some strange displays of animal skulls and skin. Apparently the artists favourite colour was black.

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There was also a Muay Thai show and some stalls around the area. They were  selling the cutest pineapples I’ve ever seen.

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After this the tour stopped at an optional long neck village. We didn’t do this, so we hung our near the bus with the rest of the people who didn’t. After this we were dropped off back home.

Again, there was a market near the gates, so we walked down for a night market.