Rain STILL unrelenting we arrived in Chiang Rai. The mini van ride was truly dreadful. Pai to Chiang Mai to Chiang Ria. Steve almost quit half way through. He powered on. We all did. Finally arriving in Chiang Rai. Feeling very tired and equally tetchy, we grabbed a tuk tuk to the rather inexpensive hotel. It was impeccably clean. It looked brand new. We could have been the first people to use room 27. The drawer handles still had their manufacturing plastic wrapping on them. The hotel owner was the cutest kindest old lady in Thailand. I never saw her without a smile stretched across her tiny face. Now let's be honest Chiang Rai isn't anything to shout home about. However, it is home to the coolest temple known to man. Wat Rong Khun. Commonly known as the White Temple
That's right Predator! Even the traffic cones leading to the temple have skulls on them. Hanging from the trees are the heads of Batman, Hellboy, Freddie Krueger, Pinhead and possibly Barack Obama amongs others.
All this is outside of the temple in the gardens. On the walkway to the temple there are zombie like arms protruding from the ground.
Inside the temple the walls are adorned with the strangest mural I have ever seen. Spiderman, Superman, Angry birds and the Twin towers? At the top there is a sugar skull with buddha coming out of its mouth.
I loved this place. Running around like a kid in a sweet shop. It was raining too. Heavily! Pics inside from google I went back for a second look around and saw a man wrestling a snake from the lake that is full of koi carp. He was no Steve Irwin that's for sure.
The white temple was designed by Chalermchai Kositpipat in 1997.
A rival artist called Thawan Duchanee created The Black House. With lots of skins & skulls & various other animal parts this please was well weird. Reminded me of Damien Hirst.
With our visa coming to an end it was time to leave Thailand for Laos. We were to embark on another epic journey. To take the scenic route was to be given a whole new meaning.....
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