Chiang Rai’s White Temple, a treasure trove of artistic delights and oddities.

Northern Thailand’s Chiang Rai is well-known as a centre for the arts, with several incredible cultural attractions and colourful characters from Thailand’s art world. The White Temple is one of these attractions, a place that really earns the description: unique.

Chiang Rai White Temple_4790

While it looks like a traditional Thai temple, Wat Rong Khun, or the White Temple as it is known to foreigners, is anything but. The creation of millionaire Thai artist Ajarn Chalermchai Kositpipat, it’s both an homage to traditional Thai artistry and popular culture.

Chiang Rai White Temple forest of hands_4795

As you approach the White Temple itself, past a pool of reflection surrounded by ornate sculptures and incredibly decorative walls and turrets, a forest of disembodied arms reach up to you as you pass over a bridge to the entrance.

Chiang Rai White Temple forest of hands_4800

Surrounding the temple grounds, the heads of demons hang from trees – traditional Thai demons alongside the Incredible Hulk, Terminator, even Gollum.

Chiang Rai White Temple heads_4785

Ancient Buddhist legends, the struggle between Lord Buddha and the Mara (demon) are told in traditional style, a mural on the walls of the temple interior, but the characters depicted are 20th century heroes and villains, like Spiderman, Ultraman and Neo, facing off Darth Vader and the Terminator.

Chiang Rai White Temple terminator head_4819

There’s a message here to the world, that we have lost a moral compass to guide us, in Chalermchai’s words; “look at each other with kindness, not with hate that can lead to war”. The eyes of a huge demon each have portraits of George Bush and Osama Bin Laden inside them, looking to each other, as below them, the Twin Towers burn. The artist’s message by including these characters is that in reality, while we need real-life heroes – no movie screen heroes could save the Twin Towers.

Chiang Rai White Temple walkway_4821

As you move through the temple, a path of enlightenment takes you towards a statue of the Lord Buddha with artwork transforming from demons to angels as you pass through, out the other end to a heavenly garden’, down a passage decorated with silver leaves and beyond to another golden temple surrounded by a pool.

Chiang Rai White Temple Buddha garden_4825

The White Temple, and its surrounding garden and buildings, is an ongoing project, worked on by Chalermchai and some 300 apprentices.

Chiang Rai White Temple golden temple_4831

In a studio the size of a hanger, we were able to observe the artists at work on their latest project, a giant mural and statue commemorating the heroes of the nearby rescue of schoolboy soccer team, the ‘Wild Boars’ from their ordeal in the flooded Tham Luang cave.

Chiang Rai White Temple Tham Luang mural_4852

The centrepiece of this memorial artwork, which will eventually be located near the entrance to Tham Luang cave, is a larger than life statue of the former Thai Navy Seal, Saman Kunan.

Chiang Rai White Temple Tham Luang statue_4849

Back towards the entrance of this enormous compound, there is an art gallery which houses a great collection of the artist’s more traditional pieces, painted in traditional Thai style, illustrations depicting Buddhist legends, as well as pieces of memorabilia from Chalermchai’s private collection, old vinyl LPs, comics and various other toys and kitsch oddities.

Chiang Rai White Temple Tham Luang statue_4850

The complex is something you won’t find anywhere else. With each turn you take you stumble across another beautiful construction or oddity of sorts, like this toilet block fit for a king, for example, more like a palace than a bathroom.

Chiang Rai White Temple golden toilets_4816

4 thoughts on “Chiang Rai’s White Temple, a treasure trove of artistic delights and oddities.

    1. It’s an amazing place isn’t? Could spend hours inspecting the temple mural finding more and more characters hidden in the design.

    2. Likewise, I have seen it twice and can’t wait to see it again. It is absolutely fabulous. The love and creativity gone into producing this masterpiece is incredible.

  1. Absolutely a delight and surprise when visited in March this year, can’t wait to go back next year and do more exploring of this beautiful project

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *