I really wanted to see the white temple in Thailand so decided to drive over to Chiang Rai. I was surprised by the fact that there wasn’t a main highway to get to Chiang Rai from Chiang Mai, but instead a one-way road with a lot of construction so there were a lot of times we were at a standstill. Because of this, I would definitely recommend staying the night in Chiang Rai since it took about 3 and a half hours to get there. Chiang Rai also has an airport which was good if you want to continue on to Bangkok or one of the islands, as we did the next day.
There aren’t a lot of places to stop on the way from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai so we stopped at the 7 Eleven to get a toastie (aka grilled cheese) for lunch. Apparently though toasties are a good option in general in Thailand for budget travelers since there are 7 Elevens all over the place.
So the White Temple, or Wat Rong Khun, is a modern temple built in 1997 and is still a work in progress, as the artist doesn’t expect it to be completed until 2070. Although most temples are colorful and bright, the white is to represent the purity of Buddha. The temple has drawn tourists to Chiang Rai when Chiang Rai wasn’t a tourist hot spot before the white temple. The artist considers the temple to be an offering to Lord Buddha and believes the project will give him immortal life. He uses his own funds to create the temple and will not accept more than around $300 from donors so that he is not unduly influenced by big money.
The entrance to the temple is surrounded by reaching hands and creepy heads that represent unrestrained desire. The idea is once you make it over the bridge, you are in a utopia and are moving towards enlightenment at the Buddha’s teachings.
The ceiling is made of little prayers.
The temple was my favorite one in all of Thailand and worth the trek from Chiang Mai. But there are still some other semi-famous temples in Chiang Rai. One of which is the Blue Temple, or Wat Rong Suea Ten. Suea Ten translates to dancing tiger, as there used to be tigers who roamed this area. The temple has a large blue Buddha and the paintings inside are reminiscent of the style from the White Temple. It’s interesting to see this modern temples and how they differ from the earlier temples created in Chiang Mai and Ayutthaya (which I will write about when I make a post for Bangkok).
Besides the Blue Temple, there is also a really cool Black temple, which we didn’t have time to go to as well as a few others which you can find in my itinerary as well as other things to do in Chiang Rai.
After the temples, we checked into the cutest hotel, Le Meridien Chiang Rai. Such a beautiful hotel with great restaurants. Definitely recommend staying there and it’s about a 10 minute drive to the Chiang Rai airport. In the morning, we flew from Chiang Rai to Krabi, then took a ferry to the island, Koh Lanta, which I will write about in my next post.
