The White Temple in Chiang Rai, Thailand is straight out of an artist’s imagination… which it is. Once a rundown temple in northern Thailand, Chalermchai Kositpipat, a local artist decided to use personal funds to renovate the temple. Wikipedia estimates that the artist has spent over 1 million baht on current renovations with more buildings in the work. The White Temple is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. The scale of intricate detail, lack of color, and reference to popular culture combined were absolutely mesmerizing.
Chiang Rai is about 3 to 3.5 hours driving distance from Chiang Mai, making it somewhat difficult to get to. To make the most of our time in Chiang Rai, we also visited the impressive Blue Temple and Black House. The Blue Temple is beautiful and more in-line with the other temples we saw in Chiang Mai. The Black House is a large property where the another Thai artist, Thawan Duchanee, created a series of mini buildings with darker themes. I would recommend anyone to visit the White and Blue Temples, but only visit the Black House if you have a deeper interest in art. Keep reading for my breakdown of each location, how we got there, and how we structured our trip to fit in a visit to Chiang Rai.
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White Temple in Chiang Rai
Under near-constant construction, the White Temple we see today is the vision of artist Chalermchai Kositpipat. Created as an offering to Buddhism, it feels like an odd cross between an art exhibition and a Buddhist temple. There are traditional motifs of the Naga serpents and ornate roof details, but the pure white color and pop culture references are strikingly non-traditional. One thing to note is that it was more stunning in person than in all the photos I’ve seen, which is saying something.
There are three major areas of the temple: garden and entrance to the temple, the exterior of the temple, and the interior. The garden is immaculately manicured with a reflection pond in the front and ornate godly statues scattered around. The entrance to the temple has a walkway of hundreds of hands reaching into the sky and enormous tusks that lead onto a bridge with Naga serpents on either side. The temple’s exterior is completely white and with intricate designs throughout. The temple’s interior is then strikingly different with colorful murals with references to popular culture.
I loved the white coloring and detailed architecture of the temple.
Contrasting the exterior, the murals inside the temple were surprisingly colorful. The murals depict destruction and death of cities and space with unknown creatures mixed in with pop culture references. These ranged from Harry Potter to Angry Birds to Spiderman to Michael Jackson to Elvis. I’ll get into the symbolism and photography next, but before I get too far, I want to mention that the White Temple has a strict dress code. There are ladies at the entrance to monitor that your shoulders and knees are modestly covered. If you do not have something covered, they will provide a shawl or wrap.
At a Glance:
- Rating: 4 (out of 4) stars, would visit again in a heartbeat
- Intensity: Casual clothes covering your shoulders and knees
- Location: Outside Chiang Rai, seemingly in the middle of nowhere
- Cost: 50 Thai Baht for the White Temple, Free at the Blue Temple, 80 Baht for the Black House
- Restrooms: Near the entrance, before you enter the gated temple area. These are nice restrooms
- Timing: 1 – 2 hours at the White Temple, 30 minutes at Blue Temple, TBD at the Black House
Highlights:
- Comparisons between Buddhist Art and Modern Thai Art
- The White Temple is a marvel to look at
- Opportunity to purchase a good luck charm at the White Temple
Lowlights:
- Gets crowded early on at the White Temple
Symbolism at the White Temple
Dedicated to Buddhism, the White Temple is somewhat of an art exhibition with layers of symbolism running throughout the grounds. One apparent theme is the desire for practitioners of Buddhism to give up worldly possessions and attachments in favor of the mind. Only when you have no attachments to this world will you feel no pain and reach enlightenment. The temple itself is white, which represents the purity of Buddha. The reaching hands when you cross over the bridge represent human greed. Humans are the cause of death and destruction, which is most clearly shown with the pop culture scenes of destruction on the murals within the temple.
Beyond this high-level analysis, I don’t want to speculate too hard. During the first half of our Thailand trip, I desperately tried to think back to my Zen Buddhism course in college, but the details escaped me. Some of the statues surrounding the White Temple felt familiar with the original stories of Buddha, but I could not place them. This website has far more details on the symbolism if you’d like to learn more.
Photographing the White Temple
The flow of traffic is in one direction from the entrance to the exit. Once you exit, you will need to buy another ticket to walk through again. You can walk around the side of the temple to go back around, but I believe this is frowned upon. With this in mind, you will want to be patient and wait for gaps in the crowds to get certain shots. Patience is my number one piece of advice. Here are some other tips:
- Look for areas around the temple that are dead-end walkways. There is a spot like this before you go onto the bridge and another one before you exit the gated areas. People do not naturally go to these areas, but you can get the entire temple in the background.
- Either before or after you enter the main temple, make sure to walk around the sides of the temple to enjoy more of the detail work and capture unique angles.
- Photos are not allowed inside the temple, which is a HUGE bummer because of how intricate the murals are with pop culture references. I chose to respect these boundaries and not take photos… However, I did take my time to look at all the walls inside the temple, instead of rushing through.
- You can also get some good shots of the temple from outside of the gated area and of the surrounding buildings/temples/structures/statues. It was like a treasure hunt to find all the odd references in the area.
- You can donate 30 baht and write on one of the metal charms. Even without knowing exactly what these mean, we enjoyed picking out our charm, writing on it, and putting it on the donation tree. I hope these are for good luck.
Pack this for Thailand!
The Blue Temple
The Blue Temple is aptly named similar Thai motifs we’ve seen before cover the temple, except in blue and gold. The outside of the temple is blue, the paintings and interior are blue, and even the buddha is blue! It was a bit busy with what looked like a school group visiting the temple when we visited. For this reason, we did not spend a ton of time inside the actual temple. The temple (like others we’ve seen) is a large rectangle made up of one large room, which is meticulously covered in details and designs, much of which is blue. I found out from this blog that the artist of the Blue Temple was a student of Chalermchai Kositpipat, so the level of detail and intricacy is very much reminiscent of the White Temple.
My favorite elements of the Blue temple were the blue naga at the entrance, which almost seemed to smile when you enter the temple. I also liked the entrance mini buildings, which had tusks you could pose with. Little did we know that the Black House would be full of animal tusks! I read online how many people loved the Blue Temple more than the White Temple due to crowds and spectacle. However, for us, it was the opposite. It was very busy at the time we went to the Blue temple that I don’t feel like I spent the time to appreciate it. Try to get there early!
Black House
If you thought the White Temple had artistic liberties, the Black House is an entire compound of art created by artist Thawan Duchanee. Declared a National Artist of Thailand in 2011, Thawan Duchanee passed away in 2014, yet there are still changes to the Black House or Baan Dam to this day. Although Thawan Duchanee declared he was not religious, his art fuses Buddhism, Hinduism, and modern art. The Black House is not a singular building, yet a property of at least 40 small buildings and statues scattered around. There is little instruction, so you are free to roam the grounds and discover each building on your own.
I came to the Black House with my Art History background in the front of my mind. Although I know little about Buddhism and the endless cycle of rebirth, I could see the artist playing with motifs of death with skins, furs, tusks, and bones in each of the buildings. I had fun looking at shapes and architecture of buildings and contrasting item placement. If modern art is foreign to you, be sure to peek in the windows and take photos with comically shaped buildings or doorways. Talk about what the artist allowing you to see and draw connections to different aspects of the buildings.
The Black House is not for everyone. I would recommend it for those looking to see Thai modern art or someone who knows Buddhism, Hinduism, or Thai architecture well to clue you into how the artist is playing with themes. I found it an interesting addition to our time in Chiang Rai, but not critical. Read the section on my overall thoughts for how I am now thinking of our visit in relation to the other temples.
Getting to Chiang Rai
Being three hours away from Chiang Mai, there is no easy way to get to Chiang Rai, but there are some options: take a tour, fly, drive yourself, or hire a private driver. Between these four options, we immediately eliminated flying due to long connections and driving ourselves because there is so much that can go wrong on a long drive like this. The tours seemed to be fairly reasonable with options to add on additional stops to hillside villages, etc. If you are spending a lot of time in Chiang Mai, this might be a good option for you. However, we opted for a private driver for flexibility.
We used Chiang Mai Minibus to hire the private driver, which cost us 3,800 baht including gas (not including the optional tip). This is roughly $125. We figured this was not much different than the cost of the tea plantation tour or elephant sanctuary visit for two people and allowed us complete flexibility. We asked for them to pick us up at 5:30 am and to drop us off at the Chiang Rai airport at 1 pm. (Note: please ask about pricing, but it could cost more depending on if you are traveling back to Chiang Mai or including farther stops).
Not only was the flexibility amazing of a private driver, but it felt like luxury. The driver was prompt in the morning, kept the temperature perfect in the car, provided small waters, was ready to go to the next stop whenever we were ready, and made sure we arrived at the airport on time. We also felt terrible this day due to the smoke of the burning season. So, it was a complete relief to simply get in the car and not worry about anything.
Working the Temples Chiang Rai into Your Itinerary
The White Temple was high on both Rebecca and my list, so we looked into how we could make it work. I saw that Chiang Rai has an airport with flights mainly going to and from Bangkok. Since we were starting in the north and heading south afterward, I found two flights that would line up to take us from Chiang Rai to Krabi with a layover in Bangkok. Then I found a private driver, which would allow us to see the temples in the morning and fly south in the afternoon. This ended up working out the best as we could have the driver pick us up at 5:30 am and spend a half-day at the temples. We were able to utilize the morning half of a travel day exploring the temples and skip the 3-hour drive back to Chiang Mai. A win-win!
I do want to mention that we flew two different airlines to get from Chiang Rai to Krabi, which made things a little complicated.
We had to go through security twice and nearly missed our second flight to Krabi due to a 45-minute layover I scheduled. I recommend looking for at least a 1 hour, 15-minute layover between your flights as there is no way to stay in the secure area. Even with this complication, I recommend looking into the option of flying to or from Chiang Rai if you are already flying in the country and looking into a private driver for the other segment. If you decide to go on a tour, it will likely take the entire day.
Circling back to how difficult it is to get to Chiang Rai, I want to say that I still found our visit to these temples worthwhile. If the White Temple is also high on your list of things to see in Thailand and you are staying in Chiang Mai, then dedicate a day to make the trek. It will be an “enlightening” experience.
Overall Thoughts: White Temple, Blue Temple, and Black House of Chiang Rai
With some distance from the temples now, it was fascinating to think about the artists behind the temples. Someone had to design and create what we see today. I now wonder about the artists of the temples in Chiang Mai – is there a main artist for those temples or a famous artist that added to those? In the west, people like Leonardo Da Vinci and others are famous for their additions to churches.
In the case of the three stops in Chiang Rai, I saw it as a range from religious art utilized for teaching to modern art with Buddhist themes. The most authenitc religious art was at the Blue Temple, whereas the White Temple utilized popular culture to educate on Buddhism, and the Black House to wove in Buddhism and Thai history into modern art.
Have you traveled far to visit a religious item or destination, even if you are not a practitioner in that religion? Religion plays such a huge part in the world’s history that I cannot imagine not seeing some part of a culture’s history while traveling. What have you found particularly interesting or worthwhile to visit? Let me know in the comments!
Happy Travels,
Hanna
