Chiang Rai

Our final long weekend of the school year was a celebration of what is apparently the most important Buddhist holiday - Visakha Bucha Day. You can click the link to learn a bit more, but this day celebrates the three biggest life events for the Lord Buddha - his birth, enlightenment and death - which all miraculously occurred on the same lunar day several year apart.

Buddhas at Wat Rong Khun.

We took advantage of the three-day weekend to visit Chiang Rai, a small city in the north of Thailand which is often overlooked by visitors opting to visit the nearby, larger Chiang Mai which has a much larger tourist infrastructure. Chiang Rai is still well-suited for tourists, just on a tinier scale, so that you still feel like you're in a Thai town when you're venturing down the city streets and visiting the markets.

Our first meal in Chiang Rai,
a late dinner at one of the only open restaurants after 10pm.

We left straight from work on Friday to hang out at the airport for what ended up being a longer time than we were actually in the air. I love these short regional flights - they're so quick! We arrived at Chiang Rai's teeny airport, sorted out a taxi to our hotel. Despite it being dark outside, the beautifully lit, expansive grounds of the hotel were so welcoming and relaxing. I knew we were in for a wonderful weekend.

"Welcoming Flower Pavilion"
at our hotel, The Legend.

We woke up early on Saturday to take advantage of the hotel breakfast. They had real bacon! Not just deli ham slices from a package. Real bacon, like what you are thinking of when I say bacon. That's what it was. That is a treat over here. So, yah, the breakfast was yummy. Then the pool was lovely overlooking the quiet little Mae Kok River. 

The pool looking towards the Mae Kok River with
a large Buddha far in the distance - can you see it?

We relaxed the day away until we finally decided to go explore the town just in time for the rains to begin. Luckily, we were able to take shelter under a shophouse awning and were invited to sit down at a table by a Thai man who promptly disappeared into the shophouse. So we were left to sit there protected on the sidewalk and watched the rain fall in those impressively fat tropical droplets for about 15 minutes.

Wat Klong Wiang: our view during the rain.

When the rain subsided, we made our way to the Hilltribe Museum to learn about the various hilltribe people living in this region. I don't think the museum has been updated too much since its original displays were put up in the late 90s/early 00s, but we still learned quite a lot and the exhibits showed some nice examples of the houses and traditional clothing the people wear - so beautiful. We couldn't take any pictures, so please do check out the link above or do a Google image search for the following: "Akha people," "Lisu hilltribe," "Hmong hilltribe," "Karen hilltribe," (famously known as the long neck Karen). The hilltribe populations in Thailand are generally exploited for tourism purposes and are not given Thai citizenship as the country does not want to encourage more people to infiltrate its borders.

Saturday market outside the Hilltribe Museum in
downtown Chiang Rai.

The hilltribes present a fascinating and complex area of Thailand and the surrounding countries' cultures. Conditions for these traditional people will likely remain stagnant considering the tourism dollars that come in as a result of visits to their villages, which they are sometimes forced to keep without electricity and other modern amenities in order to preserve the traditional ambience that attracts tourists.

Shaken, cooked eggs on a stick.

Following our visit to the museum, we stepped out into a bustling weekend market on the main street in Chiang Rai. With tons of food, souvenirs, shoes, accessories and other knick knacks, we quickly passed a few hours wandering around enjoying the happy environment that comes with the Saturday after payday over a long weekend.

Leather shop vendors and their awesome VW bug.

Traditional Thai dance performance by some children.

Tried to capture the street lights (more beautiful in person).

One of my favorite quintessentially Asian things is the public dancercise. Mostly, we saw this throughout China and I don't often do to parks here in Bangkok (because we don't really have any green space) but they also do these group exercises here in Thailand! There was a band playing typical Thai pop music and hundreds of people dance-walking around in a big circle sometimes with coordinated steps similar to what we'd do for the YMCA or Cotton-Eyed Joe. It was awesome.

Hundreds of people dancercising in a huge circle!

Veal and pork. Take your pick.

Bugs or shrimp?

Sunday held a similar itinerary to Saturday - bacon, swimming, walking around town, more market shopping and watching bad movies on the hotel TV (at least they were in English!). Following an über lazy Sunday, we maximized our final day on Monday with more bacon, more swimming and a trip to Wat Rong Khun, better known as the White Temple. Ever since I first saw its photo, this temple has been on my travel bucket list and I am so excited we got to go!

What a sight.

I knew Wat Rong Khun was designed by a famous Thai artist, but that was about it. Click the link for more details on the history of the temple. I did not expect the typical temple guardians (below) to look like transformers or whatever action figures they are. I did not expect heads to be hanging from the tree branches. I did not expect to walk into the main worship hall and see paintings of Superman, Harry Potter and Michael Jackson and the eyes of George Bush and Osama bin Laden side by side above the doors. 

Sam and the temple guard.

The inside of the temple (sorry we couldn't take pictures and I didn't want to offend Buddha on his special day by breaking the rules like I did at the Sistine Chapel) begins with your entrance through modern day distractions (like the pop icons mentioned above) and demons. As you progress towards the front of the temple, you follow people on their journey to peace and enlightenment until finally you reach the Buddha seated in front, free from distraction.

Skulls on the traffic cone.

This temple totally took me by surprise. It is such a breathtaking structure from the outside with its white mirrored exterior, but the modern interpretation of traditional Thai Buddhist artwork and decoration was what really struck me.

Decorations outside the main temple.

To enter the main temple, you must follow a walkway (and you can't stop to take pictures unless you want the guard to call out to you on the loudspeaker to keep moving) with a flowing stream of other visitors through skeletons and hands reaching up from the earth.

The walkway into the main temple.

Looking down from the main walkway.

She stands guard at the staircase.

More details of the main temple.

A gorgeous sky behind the temple.

Hey there's Sam!

After oogling the main temple, we wandered around the expansive grounds which are planned to be under construction for a least a few more decades. There was a space to make your own wish to Buddha, so of course we made one. Here is Sam holding our wish among thousands of others.

Cutie.

Touring the lesser visited parts of the temple grounds, we happened upon a sweet sight of perhaps a father and son working on a statue of Buddha.

Bring your son to work day?

On our way out, we passed the most gorgeous public bathrooms in the world. The artist intentionally made the restrooms a piece of art and insisted upon keeping them free from even a minimal cost.

The public restrooms!

Heads hanging in the trees.

It's just off the road!

Following our journey to the temple, we returned to more swimming at the hotel and lazily packed up and went to the airport and hopped back to Bangkok. This holiday was quite typical of how I prefer to travel: have just a couple of things I'd really like to do, then let the rest of the time fill itself in. All in all, it was a wonderful long weekend. Now, I just have to figure out how not to get a sore throat after being in planes. Any suggestions?