Chiang Rai - Temples & Bamboo Cooking

I am back in Thailand. After a brief stint in Bangkok in mid-November, it was time to finally explore the country and its culture/food properly.

The first stop on my Thailand adventure was Chiang Rai, which is renowned for its white and blue temple.

So on the first day, a few fellow travelers and I got up early and headed to the famous White Temple. And I can confirm, it is very very white. In pictures it might look like photoshop, but the whiteness of the temple is real. It is decorated with little shiny ornaments that give the temple a sparkling look. A really impressive sight - unfortunately there is not really a meaningful history, as it was only built in 1997. Anyway, it was still a spectacular sight to see!

Afterwards, we headed to an unreal cafe - LaLitta. It is any Instagrammer's dream. It has its own waterfall, its own little flower spots, a mystical forest and colourful plants as stairs. While it looks over the top, it is quite fun and stunning to walk through it - also helped by the fact that you can walk in the shade, which is nice when it’s 37 degrees outside.

On the second day, I opted to go for a jungle trek, which turned out to be really cool. Especially our guide was fantastic, telling us about the history of his tribe, how - as a son of refugees - he only got a citizenship with 20 years, etc. The highlight, however, was cooking with bamboo - and with that I mean stuffing bamboo trees/sticks with chicken, rice, even an omelet, etc. and then putting them against the fire to cook. Never seen anything like this before. The food was really good and there was plenty!

In the evening of both those days, we went to the night market to try some local dishes - night markets would become a recurring theme for me in the coming days/weeks.

On my last day in Chiang Rai, I met up with Marco, who I met in the hostel and we went to the Blue Temple. While the complex is much smaller than the White Temple, I actually preferred it. Not just because it was a little bit less busy, but maybe also because blue is my favorite colour. We did a little photo shooting session there, before we headed back to the hostel and it was time for me to catch a bus to the cute northern town of Pai.Read more