Chiang Rai

Leaving Chiang Mai was strange. We spent so much time there. I was just getting used to the layout of the city, knowing which stand I liked to visit, and where to hang out. But then we leave for another town.

Chiang Rai is cute. Smaller than Chiang Mai. Of course we found more used book stores and cafes to go to. But this time, we did a whole day sight-seeing adventure. Pretty cool. I don't think i would have been able to get to these places otherwise. Luckily for Jenny and I it was just us two and the guide.

We saw something called the White Temple or Wat Rung Kung. This temple was built (and is still not completed) about 13 years ago by a famous artist in Thailand. The temple's white because it supposedly illustrates his concept of heaven. The outside is strange with statues and things like sculls and the hands from hell reaching up, but I guess this makes sense...you have to walk through hell to get to heaven. Inside the temple was gorgeous. More simplier than many of the others we seen, but then again, because the artist paid for everything, he had full control on how he wanted the temple to look like. There is this mural that had a similar theme to how the outside is depicted. Things that were corrupt or evil were on the bottom and things more heavenly were to the top. What's odd is that he painted things like guns, knives, missles, and various American sci-fi and fantasy characters...superman, avatar, Neo from the matrix.... .just a bit more modern than I anticipated.

Next stop was the "Black House" which I hardly understood. It was pretty much the exact opposite of the White Temple. The house was supposed to depict hell. It was built by another famous artist that makes lots and lots of money - the Queen of Denmark paid him 10 milion baht for one of his paintings. Anyway, the house itself was beautiful but filled with dead animal skulls, and strange furniture.

From here we took a GORGEOUS drive through the mountains up to the top of Mae Saelong. The top was as usual a big tourist trap attempting to get you to buy stuff made by the hilltribe villagers. The drive though was stunning. We stopped a few times along the way to take pictures of the panoramic views and to check out the tea plantations surrounding the mountains.

Overall, not a bad tour. We left Chiang Rai and are now in Chiang Khong on the Thailand/Laos border!!