Day 27 - Chiang Rai

This morning, we were driven 3 hours north to Chiang Rai which is close to the border with Burma. The landscape has green rolling hills and is the real farmland of Thailand growing many different crops including rice, pineapple, corn, tapioca (manioc route for the Ackley siblings) just to name a few.

The main event today was to visit "The White Temple" or "Wat Rong Khun" which is actually quite modern, opening to visitors in 1997. It was renovated from a previous temple by a local very successful artist named Chalermchai Kositpipat. He used his fortune from the sale of his artwork to build this new temple and has since enriched this area by attracting tourists to see its magnificence. It looks fake right? One of the buildings on the compound housed a gallery of his prolific work which is mainly focused on heavenly utopia.

The temple itself represents the road to heaven and heaven itself. First, the departed need to go through hell to cleanse their souls. You can see hell depicted at the beginning of the bridge in the photo below with all of the hands reaching up. Then, one crosses the bridge and is reborn into heaven. Kositpipat has planned his departure and will be cremated and interred in a special building on the grounds when his time comes. He is currently retired and in his 60s.

Below are some photos of additional buildings on the grounds including The Golden Temple that housed some of his artwork and the white building will eventually hold Kositpipat's ashes.

Believe it or not the photos below are the restrooms. I think the artist had a sense of humor when he made them so extravagant.

Our second and final stop was at "The Blue Temple" or "Wat Rong Suea Ten" that was constructed by one of Kositpipsat's students named Phuttha Kabkaew and opened 2006. The main meeting room was quite impressive with the enormous white Buddha and unlike "The White Temple" it is a working temple with monks living and working on site.

Here are a few other shots of the temple.

We have seen a lot of temples in Thailand, but today's temples were completely different from the previous ones we have seen, and they made the trip to Chiang Rai definitely worth it!

Thai Fun Fact: Teak trees are quite common here but also very protected by the government. Even if you own land and plant your trees you can only harvest them once they've reached a certain size and have the appropriate release (tree by tree) from a local official.