For our only full day in Chiang Rai, we hired a car to take us to some of the main sites, all located around 20 minutes outside of the old town where we are staying.
1st Stop - The White Temple
At 7:45am we arrived at the Wat Rong Khun, with 15 minutes to spare before it opened. Our travel guide recommended arriving before opening to see it void of people. It was impressive, beautiful and a bit weird in a fun way.
We crossed over the bridge into the main building. The inside (no pics allowed) had intricate murals all around with evil overtones, such as demon faces and all kinds of random recent pop history pics as well, including Harry Potter, Hello Kitty, Michael Jackson, Freddy Kreuger and the Terminator.
This is formerly a temple that fell into disrepair and was purchased by an artist named Chaloemchai Khositphiphat. He designed, constructed and opened the temple to the public in 1997. It's still under construction on the grounds, with a planned completion date of 2070. His plan is to have living quarters for monks, among other uses.
The founding artist's picture was all over the place and often in cheesy poses; I couldn't help myself...
2nd Stop - The Black House
To balance the white, the next stop was to the Black House. Artist Thawan Duchanee created a grounds for his works, called the Black House. They are fun, strange and many 'I don't get that, but it's cool' art scattered throughout.
3rd Stop - The Blue Temple
Our third stop was at the Blue Temple. We've been to lots of temples, churches, etc in the past four months, but this was definitely one of our favorites of the trip. The Blue Temple or Wat Rong Suea Ten in Thai, was whimsical, spiritual and laid back, all at the same time. They were even piping in cool music, giving it an extra laid back Buddhist vibe.
As our trip goes on, we've largely stay away from some of the higher tourist draws, but today in Chiang Rai we did the main attractions. They certainly delivered and ended in spectacular fashion at the Blue Temple.
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