White Temple, Black House

We got off the bus in Chiang Rai and did what we did last time, which was show the address of our accommodation to one of the songthaew drivers lurking about.  This time it transpired that this was an imperfect means to get there as his songthaew was something of a tuk-tuk hybrid, our resort was 30 km up a hill and the driver patently had no clue where he was going.  After half an hour of him pulling over and asking passers-by, and me impatiently pointing at the GPS blob showing us and the marker showing our destination on my phone (which is never any use as they invariably have forgotten to bring their reading glasses) we arrived at our destination.  The lady at the resort looked bewildered: "You should take taxi" she said.  I agreed that I should take taxi.

 We were staying  at the Bura resort, which is a family-owned collection of villas up in the hills, outside of Chiang Rai.

As you can imagine, it was hellish.

We had a couple of nights there. The combined bus and tuk-tuk experience left Chan wanting to chill for our first evening, with the intention of then getting around a couple of local curiosities the following day.  We asked the staff there whether we could rent a taxi to take us around and wait for us in between sites, but they said one of their people would do it for less.   So the following morning we set out to see two different shades of fucked up: Wat Rong Khun (The White Temple) and Bann Dam (The Black House).

Wat Rong Khun was a traditional Buddhist temple that had fallen into disrepair. A local artist, Chalermchai Kositpipat, took ownership of the building and imposed his own rather individual vision on it.  He says that it is his gift to Buddha and therefore it is his guarantee of eternal life.  If you say so.   Rather than just one building, it is a series of structures depicting the evils and man and the path to heaven.  Looking over the bridge entryway you'll see grasping hands and tortured faces representing the desires that should be overcome on this metaphorical journey to salvation.

I'm not sure what this guy is for.  He looks like Turkish Iron Man.

I couldn't take pictures inside the main building, but the walls are full of apocalyptic imagery - nuclear bombs, oil pumps, fire, etc. - as well as various contemporary western icons like Freddie Kruger, The Terminator, Neo from the Matrix, Harry Potter, some of the robots from the (*spit*) Star Wars prequels, Hello Kitty and at least one Minion.  I think the message got a bit muddled in there.

Oh and there are numerous scary heads hanging from trees featuring characters from horror films, Batman and an angry na'vi from Avatar.  I don't understand either.

On the other side of the city lives Baan Dam, known also as the Black House Museum.  It is the work of another artist, Thawan Duchanee, who is a student of Chalermchai Kositpipat (the guy from a minute ago, if you're not paying attention).  If the White Temple was an artistic representation of heaven, this is a counterpart vision of hell.

Again, it is a series of buildings. only this time they are black, in the Thai temple architecture style, and adorned with decorations and furnishing made from dead animals - bones, skin, teeth etc.  There is a full elephant skeleton and a bear skin turned into a bed.  Apparently everything died of its own accord though, so we don't have to feel bad about anything.

And some of it was just a bit odd. Well, more so.

It's a blessing and a curse

Smash means mash

And with that weirdness experienced, we caught a flight the following day back to Bangkok, where we stayed overnight at the airport hotel to catch a ridiculously early flight to Bhutan.  Which, don't say it too loud, is where we are now. So I've actually caught up with reality.  We're coming back to Thailand after Bhutan for a couple of weeks more, so we're not done here yet.

Kurzfassung auf Deutsch: In Chiang Rai haben wir ein paar sehr seltsame Museen besucht.