Day 13 - The White Temple

After a good night's sleep we got up semi-early (7am) as we're getting the hang of of dodging the bigger crowds at popular temples. We caught the bus to Chiang Rai's biggest draw, the White Temple. The bus itself was a fun experience with electric fans attached to the ceiling to act as air con, the doors being left open throughout and half the bus being filled with luggage.

The White Temple is unlike any other in Thailand. As the name suggests, it's almost all white. Apart from the gold toilet block which is, you've guessed it, gold. It's also pretty creepy and I'm sure JK Rowling must have visited before she wrote The Deathly Hallows as there were a lot of creepy reaching hands etc. There were demon monuments showing that whisky and cigarettes are bad, skulls and scary heads all over the show and ghoulish guards which was a contrast to the temple which a Disney princess could have lived in. We wandered around for the requisite temple admiring time before an Ovaltine pit stop for me, and Matt's seemingly 7th coffee of the day. We checked out the free gallery of the temple designer's other artistic work which was phenomenally varied from satire of George Bush and Bin Laden on a rocket together entitled 'Love' to a black and white sketch of York. Then we experience true Chiang Rai life with a squished in journey in a blue Songthaew. It's like an open backed van with benches down either side that comfortably fits 8 but uncomfortably fits 12 which is the most common number to fill it with. Always nice to be sweatily attached to a stranger.

We grabbed lunch at Hungry Wolf's. I chose it because the owner is super sassy to bad trip advisor reviewers, not that there was many of them. We had huge burgers and milkshakes so look forward to seeing me twice the size when I'm home. After that we caught the bus to Chiang Khong. It was like the temple bus except with even more people and packages and took 2 hours. Luckily we got 2 of the back seats behind the luggage so actually a bit more room and the breeze from the back door in our faces. I get on fine as I'm quite short but Matt finds these rides tougher.

Chiang Khong is very small and laid back. It's a town where people come to spend one night before crossing the border to Laos (which we're going tomorrow). I really like it. The guest house owners are beyond friendly and we have a balcony with a gorgeous Mekong river view. We took a walk down the river and had a random but delicious Mexican meal (it's not been an authentic food day).

New country tomorrow, Laos. As long as we get through immigration 🙂Read more