Chiang Rai - White Temple and Black House (Thailand Part 10)

From Nan we drove to Chiang Rai and passed by a strikingly colorful temple about 20 minutes before our planned first stop, which made us stop spontaneously.

The Buddhist temple Wat Sai Khao consisted of individual, brightly painted buildings.

Inside the temple, there were Buddha statues, but outside, there were also some Hindu deity images.

There were hardly any other people in the temple, so we could explore it in peace. That was very different at our next stop, the White Temple Wat Rong Khun.

Here, foreign Asian tour groups crowded, and we had to watch out for selfie sticks and pushing Chinese people.

Nevertheless, the temple was very impressive. According to Wikipedia, this is an art exhibition in the style of a temple complex.

In any case, the complex is worth seeing, even if the crowds of visitors are somewhat annoying. It is still under construction - Wikipedia estimates that it will be completed in 2070.

The next morning, we first went to the "counterpart" of the White Temple, the Baandam Museum. Baandam means "Black House". It was built by the teacher of the other artist and consists of black buildings.

We liked the White Temple much better. The black houses looked quite interesting but were filled with strange art that didn't quite appeal to our taste:

Many crocodile skins, horns, and bizarre figures were standing around. Some houses could be seen from the outside, but entering was always prohibited.

Today was the day of the primaries in Thailand. Finally, it was also the first day that we didn't hear election cars with loudspeakers. We noticed this because it was prominently displayed in our hotel that there would be no alcohol sales from the evening before until the end of the election. There are also different regulations in the supermarket than in our country: When we wanted to buy a bottle of wine in the afternoon (4:45 pm), we were told that alcohol could only be bought from 5 pm. It's not like we wanted to drink it immediately, but we decided to do without it then...