DAY 25-28: Chiang Rai Temples
The next morning I didn’t eat anything to avoid the vomiting sensation that was about to come from navigating the serpent-like road to Chiang Mai. There, I took another bus to Chiang Rai, and fell asleep. When I woke up the bus had stopped in the middle of the road, it was already dark, and we were still quite far from Chiang Rai.
More than an hour later, I was starving. Nobody knew when we would resume our way, so I couldn’t resist anymore and stepped out of the bus to find something to eat. As soon as a local lady was serving me a soup, the bus engine got fix (damn Murphy’s Law!). It was funny that the local lady immediately poured the soup from the bowl into a plastic bag and handed it to me (one year later and I still have not learned how to eat soup from a plastic bag without making a big mess).
The following morning I met with Ella (one of the members from the farm family) who had also come to Chiang Rai, and we visited the three main attractions of the small town (white temple, blue temple, and black house). First, we took a local bus to go to Wat Rong Khun a.k.a. the white temple.
Actually, it is not a temple, but a piece of art funded and designed by the famous Thai artist Chalermchai Kositpipat. They often compare it to the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, as the artist has not finished it yet and it will take decades before that happens.
I will not bore you with more details that you can find in Wikipedia, but this temple has so many details, and it is so unique, I believe is worth visiting it 100%. To come back we had to stand in the middle of the road until a small pick up truck brought us back to town. Since there was no space for everybody inside the small vehicle I had to ride it local style, standing outside, hanging from the metal bars.
Next, we went to Baan Dam (not the actor) but the museum also known as the Black House. This museum has a bit of an obscure aura, decorated with a broad collection of skins, bones, teeth, and horns of a wide array of animals. I didn’t like it that much, so rapidly we went into the last attraction.
This time, we had to run into a bus in the middle of the road, avoiding the traffic, as there were no bus stops and we already had missed two. One more time, no space for me, so I had to sit on the floor, next to the driver, bumping my as in every pothole of the road.
The blue temple (Wat Rong Suea Ten) is also one of the most beautiful and unique temples I have seen in Thailand. It was constructed very recently, and the designer is one of the students of Chalermchai (the designer of the white temple). Wikipedia for more info.
To finish the day we went to a roof top bar and see the sunset. There we met an American expat with a hyperactive kid. He was giving us some advice of what to do in the following days and I was entertaining the kid with a magic trick involving a coin that I learned form my dad🎩. We moved all together to a reggae bar, until the kid absorbed all my energies and I felt sleep.
The Chiang Rai post will continue, as I could recover more pictures and stories to tell. Today is spam day. And last one in Thailand.
DAY 25-28: Chiang Rai Nature
We rented bikes for the following two days to visit Chiang Rai surroundings. Another girl that Ella had met in her hostel joined us. She had been dating a Thai guy for two years and she could speak the language, which was quite useful to communicate with locals.
The first day we went to the South. We spent most of the day in a park with many different kinds of flowers. I don’t remember much about that park, only that food was very expensive, and (from the only picture I have recovered) that yellow flowers🌻 fit fabulously on me🤣.
After that, we went waterfall hunting, but it was getting late and we had to settle for a refreshing deep on the river. On the way back to Chiang Rai we stopped to have dinner in a restaurant that had tables floating on the river. To finish the day, we went to observe a light spectacle at the clock tower in the main square of the town. Thousands of birds were flying around the lights of the tower. With the dark background of the night, it felt even more magical, like if they were dancing stars💫 .
The last day we went North. We were supposed to find a small village where people live in harmony with elephants🐘, but the elephants that we saw were in chains so we left the place rapidly. We kept going up the road, driving through hills covered with rice paddies of an intense green color that didn’t seem real.
We were hoping to find natural hot springs to chill and spend the afternoon. Once again we were disappointed with what we found. The hot springs were there, but they stink to sulfur and were boiling hot🔥 . At some point, we heard some noises and we found that the hot springs reached a river where local kids were playing. We spent the rest of the day swimming with them.
On the way back we stop for sunset next to the rice paddies. That was the goodbye to Thailand.