Chiang Rai

The next stop on our Thailand tour was to the city of Chiang Rai. This is a smaller town in the far north of the country surrounded by tree covered mountains. It was really beautiful! We booked a day tour that gave us the opportunity to see most of the main sights at once. We ended up being with an awesome group of other travelers from all over the place, Canada, Switzerland, Argentina, Portugal and Denmark. There was even a girl from Nigeria! The sights were fun but this group made it even more entertaining.

Wat Rong Khun (The White Temple)

Although I have been suffering from wat fatigue, the White Temple was so different that it wasn’t one that I was immediately bored with. It is more of an art exhibit than an actual place of worship. In 1997, an artist by the name of Chalermchai Khositpipat, took the remains of an aging and dilapidated temple and gave it a new life. It is done completely in white, representing the purity of the Buddha. Though it is magnificent and definitely stands out compared to the other temples, this one has received a lot of criticism as some people feel it is sacrilegious.

There are three sections to the temple. It starts with ‘Hell’ where you will see all kinds of grotesque imagery and hands reaching up from an abyss. This is supposed to represent the cycle of death and rebirth

You then cross over a bridge called the Gate of Heaven which represents the walkway out of the cycle of rebirth.

Finally, you enter the temple which is representative of paradise.

Wat Rong Suea Ten (The Blue Temple)

Another temple that is pretty new and stands out from the others is the Blue Temple or the ‘House of the Dancing Tiger.’ This temple was completed in 2016 and mostly popular due to its sapphire blue color. My favorite part about this stop was that we got really good coconut ice cream here. 🙂

The Black House

The Black House is actually a series of many houses created by the late artist, Thawan Duchanee, one of Thailand’s most famous internationally known artists. His work includes paintings, sculptures and architecture that is all very eclectic in nature. Overall, his work was very good but the place was just bizarre.

Choui Fong Tea Plantation

We made a quick stop at a tea plantation. We didn’t really get a lot of information about the process of growing and harvesting the tea but it was very pretty!

The Northernmost Point of Thailand

This was a bit of an odd and short stop. We pulled into a market and then walked to a gate that led to a bridge to the country of Myanmar. The border is currently closed but we were able to look at it…and that’s about it…

The Golden Triangle

Here we stopped and saw the area where the countries of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar all meet at the convergence of the Mekong and Ruak rivers. Apparently it is called the Golden Triangle because at one time this is the point where massive amounts of gold would change hands as part of the opium trade. Once upon a time, this area was full of poppy flowers that produced opium, also known as black gold because of its value and color.

The Opium Museum

Our final stop was to the Opium Museum where we learned more about the opium trade from days past. This was a very interesting and cleverly constructed museum that I learned a lot from. For example, they used weights to measure out their opium and the weights were all in shapes of little animals. I failed to take pictures of this (or very much in the museum at all!), but spent a lot of time questioning why they would go through all the effort of making them into animals when they could just use cubes!

They also had a whole bunch of the ‘pillows’ that were used when smoking opium, which were hard stools or decorative rocks. Apparently when using, you are in such a dreamlike state that it feels like you are laying on a cloud. Who’d’ve thought?!

The Day Finale

After the tour was over, most of us were dropped off at the Night Bazaar where we had dinner together. We then stumbled upon some durian which everyone wanted to try. It must not have been very fresh because the smell was not overly terrible and it wasn’t as slimy as I remember from when I tried it in Sri Lanka. In the end, everyone was surprised that it was not as bad as they had imagined it would be, but I don’t think anyone will rush to buy it and have it again!