A city of temples

Chiang Rai, Thailand

Dec 13, 2025

The north of Thailand is a wealth of culture and beauty, and somehow I only gave myself enough time to visit three cities.

I visited the beautiful, and fairly out of the way, Mae Hong Son, which was absolutely beautiful, and so calm and cozy with the mountains always watching over you. Then I faced a brutal 12-hour travel day on buses to get from Mae Hong Son all the way to Chiang Rai.

Chiang Rai is famous for one thing: having some of the most beautiful temples in the entire country. And I’m just going to spoil the rest of this post for you right here. TLDR: The temples here are insanely beautiful and worth the hype.

To be fair, the temples all over the country are insanely beautiful, I don’t think I’ve been to a temple where I was like “gosh darn, that wasn’t as pretty as I thought it would be.” No, they’re all beautiful. But maybe it’s because I was told the temples here were extra special and stunning, but at times, they felt more like art installations than places of worship, or maybe just both at the same time.

One of the popular things to do in Chiang Rai is to book a full-day excursion that hits all the main temples, then drives up to the Golden Triangle (where Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos meet), stopping at a tea plantation along the way. Sometimes they throw in a Karen village visit for good measure.

Instead of booking one of these tours, Jordan and I decided that we wanted to take things at our own pace. Although these tours are nice to ensure you see all of the sights, sometimes its nicer to be able to spend as much time as you want at any place, and do these things over a course of a few days. Not to mention my boyfriend teaches English online, so it would be a bit stressful to always be watching the time to ensure he makes it back to town in time for his lesson.

The first temple we visited is arguably the most famous in all of Thailand: the White Temple, Wat Rong Khun.

It was designed and funded by a local artist, Chalermchai Kositpipat, after the original temple on the site fell into disrepair. The whole temple complex is his vision, a contemporary reimagining of traditional Buddhist architecture, gleaming white and covered in mirrored glass that catches and throws the light everywhere like a giant mirrorball.

The main chapel is reached by crossing a bridge over a sea of hundreds of reaching hands, symbolizing desire and suffering. Inside, the murals are unlike anything you’d see in a traditional temple. Apparently Spiderman is in there, but I just noticed how dark all of the murals were, very different and more apocalyptic than your traditional temples.

A few of the exhibits go on break around lunch time, which is when we went, so we did miss a few things, like the art cave, but what we saw was incredibly beautiful, so I didn’t really feel like I was missing out on too much.

The blue temple, Wat Rong Suea Ten, was designed by another local artist, probably not coincidentally, the student and protégé of the artist behind the famous white temple. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I knew that before looking it up right now, but I did take an art history class in high school and at university, so I did see some similarities in the paintings inside the main temple, and similar dark themes that I haven’t seen in too many other temples in Thailand.

Even though the photos show a very vibrant blue, it was maybe even more blue in person. When we first arrived I was actually a bit shocked at how intense the color was. I mean to be fair, it is called the blue temple so I should have been more prepared.

We also visited Wat Huay Pla Kang and Guan Yin statue. I read one blog online that said that the most beautiful time to visit the temple was at sunset, because the sun sets behind the massive goddess statue. And I’m glad I read that recommendation, because the temple at that time was stunning. I feel like I took some really cool pictures here.

The main temple has nine floors you can climb up for really cool views of the Guan Yin statue and of Chiang Rai town in the distance. There is also an elevator in the Guan Yin statue that you can pay a small fee to go all the way up into their head, but as I wanted to see the sunset from the ground, we opted to not take the ride up.

For me, the coolest part of this temple was the dragons on the grand staircase leading up to the Guan Yin statue. Famously, I am obsessed with nagas, the serpent guardians you see at Buddhist temples all over Southeast Asia. The nagas are my favorite part of every temple, they’re always designed so beautifully, and this temple was no exception. As dusk fell over the temple, I even managed to get some pictures of them posing with the rising full moon.

Because I opted not to take one of the full day, all encompassing, tours, I did not end up seeing all of the usual sights that Chiang Rai offers. I did not visit the Golden Triangle. I didn’t visit any tea plantations. I didn’t visit Singha Park or one of the Karen villages. And that is something that I’m just getting better at being okay with. You don’t have to visit every single one of the “must-see destinations” to truly experience a place.

All I did was visit a handful of temples, the Baan Dam museum, take my time walking around the city, and eat lots of good food. And I feel like I experienced the city well enough.

That being said, I could easily have spent more than three days here. I’m so used to traveling slowly, I mean I spent three months in Siem Reap and probably could have spent longer. Technically three days was enough, bot both Jordan and I agreed that the food options are incredible in Chiang Rai and another day would have been well spent, eating lots of good food!

Ps. I went to a cat café while I was here, and it was worth the allergy attack I had later that night.