Baan Nipa, Chiang Rai, Day 2

We are up pretty early today ready to see what has become colloquially known as the heaven and hell of Chiang Rai.
After getting up and having some pad Thai for breakfast, we head to he bus station. Local buses are always interesting, and we manage to find one heading to the White Temple. It soon gets very busy and cramped, but luckily we have the back seat so have some leg room. After around twenty minutes we reach our stop, which is very helpfully pointed out by the ticket collector.
As you walk up to the White Temple it isn't an exaggeration to say it looks like something out of a Disney movie. The temple is impossibly white as the Sun glares off it, forces many sunglasses to be put on just to stare at it. It is an amazing, wondrous thing. Before heading into the temple, we walk through an art gallery containing the work of the architect/artist who designed the temple. The painting range from beautiful to weird as you head through. The colours achieved with acrylic on canvas image stunning, and most of the stuff is great. There is a large penis sculpture and a picture of George Bush and Osama Bin Laden hugging on a rocket which seems out of place, but apart from that it is amazing.
After that we head inside the temple. It is as impressive inside as it is outside. Again it is painted beautifully, with odd little drawings of cultural figures such as Harry Potter and Pikachu. We spend around an hour simply walking around the temple grounds staring at the many sculptures and decorations that adorn it. Some trees are built entirely of metal sculptures, some trees have skulls and pirate heads hanging from them, which kind of sums up this amazing, magical place. It is Disneyland comes to Northern Thailand, and alone justifies a visit to Chiang Rai.
We leave the White Temple and manage to grab a hail down a tuk tuk that takes us back to Chiang Rai for the same price of a bus (20 baht). After dinner we head to the black house. We manage to make it there on a local bus again with minimal fuss. After a short walk we head into the complex, and the first thing that catches our eye is the huge wooden building the looks rather ominous. This is the hell of Chiang Rai, compared to the heavenly white temple, and it is easy to see why. Dead animal skulls and skins are everywhere. It is an odd, rather disturbing place that seems to just be rather sinister. After a while we get fed up of seeing buffalo skulls, and walk round a lot more quickly than we did the White Temple. To think this place was suggested to us by a vegetarian is very odd, as it is certainly not a place for animal lovers. To see people taking selfies with the bones and skins is also a rather strange thing, and we aren't exactly sad when it is time to leave.
So we grab a bus back (just) and grab a very tasty curry and beer before heading back to the room. It has been a very long day and we are ready to head back to Chiang Mai and begin our Christmas week there!もっと詳しく