Chiang Rai and the White Temple

As we made our way from Chiang Mai to the Laos border, we stopped for a night in Chiang Rai. Not only was it a convenient way to break up the bus ride to the border, we had heard backpacker legends about a crazy “white temple” that was worth stopping for. The rumors were correct.

The White Temple of Chiang Rai

The White Temple (officially, “Wat Rong Khun”) is a Buddhist temple that is the personal project of Chalermchai Kositpipat, a Thai artist. According to pamphlets at the temple, he created the temple as a way to honor Buddha as well as convince other people to become more religious.  Because initially he wasn’t able to obtain any funding for the temple, he started the work with his own money and donations.

Jami in front of the temple

While on a completely different scale, I think the best comparison is to Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Both passion projects of artists, even if Gaudi was hired; both fulfilling a deeply personal religious calling; and both radically different from conventional temples/churches. But with the Sagrada Familia architecture is the primary draw; with the White Temple it’s the carvings, statues, and facades that adorn the buildings. They are crazy. Out of control nuts.

Carvings of some devil-like creatures

While the designs were crazy, they were beautiful with a great attention to detail.

Gargoyles (I think)

Another monster

The temple buildings themselves are very basic, white buildings. In fact, because the temple complex is still under construction, several of the unadorned buildings are visible, and they are nothing special. The “specialness” comes from Kositpipat’s sculpture and artwork that covers every square inch of the completed buildings. They are crazy, and like nothing we had ever seen before, while at the same time containing many Buddhist images and references.

An unfinished building, with the main, finished, temple in the background.

A finished building, guarded by a crazy-looking man

The entrance to the temple contains pits with hands grasping into the sky, supposedly of condemned souls who were sent to hell.

Hands reaching up.

I couldn’t let them just hang there, could I?

One of the most amusing elements for us was how Kositpipat includes pop culture in his work. And by pop culture, I mean American pop culture. For example, in one of the main murals, representing the fight against evil, there are numerous icons from American movies, including X-wing fighters, Michael Jackson, and (no joke) Kung-Fu Panda. Statues around the grounds include many references to other American movies franchises.

Michael Jackson in the lower right corner; Kung Fu Panda on the left.

An alien from the movie Predator, just hanging out on the grounds… for some reason.

In addition to movie characters more expected to be in Disneyland or Universal Studios than a Buddhist temple, there are a number of scary-looking severed heads hanging from trees.  Some are of famous characters (such as Freddy Kruger), others just crazy, scary heads.

Bleeeech!

A more devlish creature

As part of the mission to convince people to become more religious, the temple has warnings against bad behavior – such as pictures of a devil, and warnings of the dangers of alcohol and smoking.  Amusingly, the devil’s two eyes contain drawings of George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden.  According to the materials this is because Kositpipat wanted to show two sides to evil, but to us it just seemed like an easy way to date the mural.

Whiskey = the devil.

But while the artist supposedly started the temple complex as a way to honor his religion and its gods, and to get others to become more religious, to me the temple focused less on religion and more on the artist himself. Life-size posters of Kositpipat are displayed all around the grounds; galleries display his other works; and sculptures of crazy faces and whacked out monsters don’t seem to cause spiritual reflection, but instead to lead people to think about how cool the sculptures are, and who created them.

With the artist – he was in this pose in every poster.

Regardless, it didn’t matter to us because we weren’t there for the spirituality, we were there for the cool sculptures! So for us the White Temple was a very cool detour on the way to Laos.  Chiang Rai didn’t have all that much else to see, but there were a few other cool temples and a fun market with an instant-favorite street food: deep-fried noodles around a pork ball.  Yum!

Jami on the streets of Chiang Rai

Cooking up noodles and pork balls

Yum.