Day 38 - Chiang Rai & The White Temple

This morning we left Chiang Mai for Chiang Rai. We booked minibus tickets that included a stop on-route at the White Temple. We had never even heard of it, but it turned out to be the most interesting thing we did all day.

After 3 or so hours in a cramped minibus, the White Temple arose on the horizon like something out of Disneyland's Winter Wonderland. White and covered with mirrors and shards of glass the temple sparkled proudly in the afternoon light. After being told my shorts were "impolite", I was given a nice modest toga-like sheet to wrap around my waist. It was white, of course. I blended in nicely.

The temple was surrounded by beautiful lawns and gardens. But it the midst of the rolling greens were these really odd (and grotesque) sculptures of skeletons, ogres, and monsters coming up out of the ground. The quaint bridge crossed over this sea of demon-like creatures making the strark contrast between the temple and the carvings; good and evil.

Inside the temple was a Buddha shrine and the usual offerings and accompanying statues we have become accustomed to seeing on this trip. But the walls were not! The paintings on the inside walls of the temple was a bizarre collage of pop culture images we assumed was supposed to reflect modernity. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures, but some images were things like; Tomb Raider, Angry Birds, Avatar, and Michael Jackson!

We arrived at the bus station and easily found a place to stay. Although we didn't have a booking we had the address of a Guesthouse we found online that we liked. We rested until I was really hungry (which is synonymous with grumpiness) and then headed out for some fresh fruit from the market. The market was buzzing with activity; everyone seemed to be buying their groceries for dinner. Then we tried to find the river to walk along it. But we kept getting lost and finding only one way streets so we gave up! Maybe tomorrow...

For dinner, we headed to the night market. I had sushi (again!) and Phil had barbecued pork. The market sold some really great crafts, clothes, and toys. We walked around for a bit before heading back towards our Guesthouse. On-route we stopped at a travel agent to book our tickets to Laos via the famous slow boat. Everyone says this is a must do trip so we are really looking forward to it. We'll basically take a minibus to the border, cross over to Laos, get onto the boat for about 8 hours, then spend the night in Pak Beng, and then wake up and do another stint on the boat before arriving in our destination, Luang Prabang.

And that was pretty much our day.

Until next time,
Luisa