After breakfast, I made my way to the nearby bus station and boarded a bus bound for Mae Sai to get to Baan Dam, which is along the highway to Mae Sai. The journey took about 15 minutes, at which time I disembarked and followed the directional signs to my destination.
Baan Dam, or Black House, is a complex of about 40 structures located north of Chiang Rai. The buildings and their contents are the brainchild of an artist named Thawan Duchanee. I got there just after opening time and I saw that there was a tour bus full of package tourists from China already there. Rather inexplicably, they were primarily interested in filming themselves doing a group dance to the Mandarin equivalent of Three Blind Mice. They did it over and over.
The Baan Dam grounds and the buildings were very interesting. Almost all the buildings were black or a very dark brown, and the artist made interesting use of items such as buffalo skulls and horns and crocodile skins juxtaposed against cash and other more mundane items. I‘m not quite sure how to interpret the exhibits other than to speculate that the artist was expressing his thoughts about how humans interact with their environment and with one another. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/black-temple
After over an hour on the grounds, I made my way back to the highway. Although it was only 10.30am, I was already hungry. I didn’t want to eat at the touristy restaurants immediately adjacent to Baan Dam, but the only nearby place I could find along the highway was a little cafe selling overpriced fried rice.
After eating, I waited along the highway for about 10 minutes until a Chiang Rai bound bus came along. The highway was Highway 1, also known as Pahol Yothin Road. The mind boggles to think that this road goes all the way to Bangkok, right up to the apartment I lived in back in 1994-95.
ThailandChangwat Chiang RaiBan Nang Lae19°59’31” N 99°51’38” E
ThailandChangwat Chiang RaiBan Nang Lae19°59’31” N 99°51’38” E