Chiang Rai: Colourful temples, friendly locals and saying goodbye to Thailand
- Esther
- Dec 21, 2018
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 4, 2020
Chiang Rai has the exact same friendly, laid-back vibe that I loved in Chiang Mai, so it's not surprising I've also had a really good time here!
As soon as Ben and I got out of our bus near the Golden Clock Tower, we found ourselves in the middle of a colourful Christmas parade, where all the local primary school students were handing out sweets, singing and wishing us a happy Christmas. It probably wasn't the most traditional Thai celebration but it was definitely a great introduction to this small, friendly and easygoing town.
We got a second warm welcome soon afterwards when we arrived at our hostel, the Winter House Chiang Rai (which actually only cost us a couple of pounds each night!)
The place is run by a lovely lady called Da Da, who chatted with us, offered to teach us how to make her delicious pad thai and basically treated us like family the whole time we were there. When we left this morning, she even gave us little handmade souvenirs to remember her by!
After trying some of the amazing food at Chiang Rai's Night Bazaar and visiting one of the town's trendy coffee shops, we took a tour of the area's most famous landmarks with Da Da's son (who was just as friendly and helpful as his Mum).
Chiang Rai's beautiful modern temples
From Bangkok's glittering Grand Palace to Cambodia's world famous Angkor Wat, we've seen a lot of amazing temples in our travels so far. But the ones in Chiang Rai still felt new and unique because they'd all been built in the last few decades and were basically works of modern art.
The first temple we saw on our tour was the White Temple, which looked like something out of Narnia! Apparently, the artist built it to represent the afterlife and the mix of good and evil in the world.
Afterwards, we also got to take a look at the colourful Blue Temple, which the artist started building from the remains of an ancient temple in 2005 and only just finished a couple of years ago. From the front, its bright blue spires and sculptures are pretty striking, but (unlike the White Temple) the Blue Temple is even more detailed and beautiful inside.
Next, we headed over to the Black Museum; a collection of gothic-looking wooden houses all built by contemporary Thai artists. This place felt a little more dark and surreal, and it was really cool being able to see the contrast between all the town's different modern landmarks in just one day.
We finished our tour by visiting Chiang Rai's iconic Big Buddha, which sits super peacefully on a hilltop in Wat Huay Pla Kang - and is even bigger in real life than it looks in pictures!
Even though I've found that a lot of the temples in South East Asia can feel a bit samey after a while (if you're a tourist), these more recent, quirky ones in Chiang Rai were actually really cool.
I'd say I preferred Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai - mostly because there was more going on in town there, and more places to see elephants too! But I'd still recommend Chiang Rai as a place to stop by before heading to the airport if you want a little bit more sightseeing or a couple of chilled out, sunny days.
Now, we're heading to Bangkok to catch our flights to Japan, meaning our time in Thailand has come to an end. I've seen and done so many incredible things in this country and despite how much it's suffering from overtourism in some areas, I still think Thailand is a really amazing place.
In the last couple of weeks, we've seen everything from amazing beaches and jungles to glimpses into a totally different culture's history. You just have to make sure you branch out a bit and see more than just Bangkok and the party islands.
I’m really excited to get on a flight to Japan now and see how different life is there!
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