Chaing Mai vs. Chiang Rai

I was noticing a trend in reports of people coming from North Thailand. The new travelers were raving about Chiang Mai while the ones doing it for a while said Chiang Rai is much nicer. Now I can understand why. Chiang Mai has an abundance of tour agencies offering cool stuff to do like elephant riding, zip-lining, minority village tracks etc. and is full of Buddhist temples everywhere you go. This is great if you’ve just arrived from Bangkok, but after traveling for a long time it isn’t exciting anymore. Chiang Rai on the other hand is about quality instead of quantity. It’s small and more laid back but the atmosphere is very inviting. There are two new and more artistic temples which are simply breathtaking.

The white temple is already 13 years under constant expansion and even the architect behind the vision doesn’t know when work will end. I stole the following picture from the Internet because photographing isn’t allowed on the inside.

The murals reminded me a lot of visionary artists such as Luke Brown, Alex Gray and HR Giger. It also included pop culture icons such as Darth Vedar, Neo from the Matrix and also Osama Bin Laden vs. George W. Bush. The overall theme was criticism against accumulating material wealth and instead emphasizing social and spiritual merits.

In contrast to the white temple there is also a black one on the opposite side if town and constructed by a different artist. I liked this one even better and it really had a Burningman feeling to it.

The artist draw his inspiration primarily from bones, skulls and other old artifacts. The grounds contain about 40 buildings and the overall theme is “heaven vs. hell”. You can see many other pictures in the Photos section of the blog.

So right now I am in a small hippie town called Pai after being in Chiang Mai for just one day and getting a bit bored. My fractured finger prevents me from doing most of the strenuous activities and I need to get used to the idea that my last 3 weeks will be mostly about relaxing instead of doing stuff. I might as well. As we move more into the rainy season outdoor activities become less attractive and by the time I make it back to the south I’ll want to rest anyway.