Chiang Rai (Northern Thailand Part Three)

February 28, 2026|Rick Juliusson

Last stop of our Northern Thailand jaunt is Chiang Rai. Honestly it’s a lot like Chiang Mai but on a smaller scale, but there are some fantastical quirky sites (Condom Café anyone?) to make it a worthy stop.

White Temple of Chiang Rai

If Gaudi were to build a Buddhist temple, he’d come up with something like Chiang Rai’s “White Temple.” The all-white exterior with embedded mirror glass symbolizes Buddha's purity. What the hundreds of skulls and skeleton hands reaching desperately up at us as we cross the entrance bridge is an entirely different question. Wikipedia says the hands symbolize “unrestrained desire… The bridge proclaims that the way to happiness is by foregoing temptation, greed, and desire.” They look more like Ursula’s “poor unfortunate souls” from Little Mermaid to me, but it’s clear that Thai artist Chalermchai Kositpipat unleashed his full creativity (and over $1.25 million dollars of his own money) into reimagining what had been simply an old temple in need of repair.

Also on site is a gallery with paintings by Kpsotpipat and other artists, and the glittering “Golden Temple” bathroom buildings symbolizing our obsession with materialism. Plus a manmade “Cave of Art” where we pass through narrow hell-scape passages before emerging into a blessed Buddha cavern.

Bridge of "the cycle of rebirth" leads to the White Temple

The "gate of heaven", guarded by two creatures representing Death and Rahu, who decides the fate of the dead.

White Temple Bridge of Redemption in Chiang Rai

Entering the Cave of Art

Blue Temple

Not to be outdone, villagers on the other side of Chiang Rai rebuilt their abandoned brick temple into another "neotraditional Thai art" style tourist attraction. I’m sure real worship also happens here - 88,000 Phra Rod Lamphun statues buried under the Buddha statue can't be wrong. But at both temples the swarms of tour-bus-instagram-posers obscures the intended holiness.

I’m one of those 10,000 tourists who will come here today, so I have no right to complain. It’s just unsettling to go to a holy site and encounter bullhorn-bearing security guards telling us to “keep moving in one direction - no turn around.” At least here at the Blue Temple we’re allowed to take photos inside.

Phra Phuttha Ratchamongkhon Bodi Tri Lokkanat, which means "the Buddha as the auspicious ruler, the refuge in the three worlds." He's also 21 feet tall.

Offerings at the Buddha's feet

Phra Upakut, one of the most revered monks in Theravada Buddhism, in his characteristic pose: looking skyward with one hand on his bowl and the other slightly in the bowl

Hill Tribes Museum

On the long walk back from Blue Temple, we rest at the Chivit coffee house in a riverside colonial-style villa, peruse the Khua Silapa art gallery, pound a vegan burger with the very emphatic Polish owner of Kunda Café, and pass by the rather unimpressive clock tower that has a presumably equally-unimpressive light show each night. We also pop by Wat Ming Muang, a 700-year old temple known by many as the Crouching Elephant Temple. How refreshing to be the only tourists there!

Clock tower

Crouching elephant/dragon

Decorations from old lights

All those stops are en route to the very impressive Hill Tribes Museum. Through a very informative low-budget film, then unadorned but in-depth interpretive signs, we learn much more about various peoples and villages we had just toured a few days ago in Mae Salong. Any factual information I shared in that blog post was mostly informed by this museum, not my ignorant walkings down the actual village paths.

Sarah, predictably, loves the traditional fabrics on display. I, also predictably, am tickled (pun intended) by the ode to condoms - a tribute to a Thai development worker who introduced sex education to the hill tribes, normalizing discussion and use of condoms.

The museum does not mince words when it comes to Christian missionaries and oblivious backpackers. People trying to supplant traditional beliefs with Western frameworks are not appreciated. Tourists who pay pennies for an indigenous sweater that takes a full year to make are not appreciated. It’s a good pause to reflect on my own impact and respect when entering someone else’s world.

A Festival to Finish Up in Thailand

We’re fortunate to be in Chiang Rai for the King Mengai Festival, in honour of the city’s founder. While there are religious rites performed at the hillside temple, my time is spent at the old airport where a mile-long market has been erected for the day.

Up aisle one I sample as many special treats as I dare (Sarah stayed home to work so this mouse is a-feastin’). Below are only photos of the items (some of the items) I actually taste.

At the end are dubious-looking rides and ferris wheels that fortunately won’t open until tonight. Back down aisle two I pass a fresh meat section (ie, live guinea fowl, rabbits, etc), gun-shooting and balloon-popping carnival games, knick-knacks and cleaning products, then more food-on-sticks. It’s Thailand’s answer to the Minnesota State Fair.

Rice pudding in bamboo

Mystery meat? Sure!

Sweetness - kidney bean, salted egg, chocolate, green tea...

Sweetness, probably bean-filling

Fried fried fried - it's State Fair food!

Fresh omelette in a crispy fried something

I wander the 1-hour home through what Google Maps tells me is downtown Chiang Rai. No high buildings or street lights, but there are more karaoke bars, pool halls, and a disco called the Sperm Club beside the Minute Hotel (rents by the hour or by the minute?)

And just like that our 2.5 weeks in Thailand are done. Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai, with a yoga retreat and two smaller mountain towns squeezed in. Amazing food, from Michelin-rated food carts in Chiang Mai to the not-to-be-missed Barrab here in Chiang Rai, and of course the daily vegan feasts at Suan Sati. We chose to skip the insanity of Bangkok and tranquility of the southern island beach paradises. Landscape beauty and culture and history and food are more our style, and we have enjoyed all of that here in Northern Thailand. Next stop - Vietnam.