Tag: Temples in Chiang Rai

Temple in Chiang Rai: found

You may or may not recall, a couple of months back we went up a temple on a hill in Chiang Rai and far in the distance we could see another cool looking temple.  We mentioned on this blog that we hoped to find it at some point in the future, so this time when we were in Chiang Rai Dre accepted the challenge of picking the right road to find this temple.  And succeeded!

Temple we found about 15 minutes out of Chiang Rai

From the hill we first viewed it on, it looked almost like an Aztec structure but when we got up close it turned out to be a fairly new, very well maintained Chinese temple.  We arrived with perfect timing – we got to see the sunset behind the temple and when we walked right up to the top inside the views from every side were amazing.  Inside the smell was so good – all of the Buddha’s and other statues were carved from Sandalwood so the entire temple was filled with the awesome scent of the wood.

Temple sunset in Chiang Rai

Thong came to meet us to take everything back to Luang Namtha for the shop, and so we took him to try his first ever pizza.  He went into the kitchen and convinced the staff to let him try olives, capers, and anchovies for the first time also – they thought it was hilarious for a sheltered jungle boy from Laos to come to the big city in Chiang Rai and try so many ‘firsts’.

Thong checking out the woodfired pizza oven in Chiang Rai Buddha made of Sandalwood in Chiang Rai

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now we are about to board a night bus for 15 hours to get to Vientiane – it’s much quicker to go this way than to travel down Laos and unfortunately we have to return to our least-favourite part of Laos to get our new visas.  Our photos from Chiang Rai are here.

Stranded in Chiang Rai (briefly)

We spent our first couple of days rushing around, as usual, buying stuff and riding around trying to find things that we need and cannot buy in Laos.  So on our third night, we were pretty exhausted and we were preparing to leave the following morning.  Dre wanted to visit the woodfired pizza place, and check out their oven as well as eat their pizza, so we went there for dinner.  A few minutes after we sat down, torrential rain started and within about an hour the whole street had flooded.  This isn’t too unusual for rainy season, so we didn’t think much of it and just waited til it eased a bit before we rode home.

But, the rain didn’t stop all night or all morning the next day so it meant that the streets were too flooded for us to leave Chiang Rai.  We didn’t mind too much, we got some time to relax and then when it cleared up in the afternoon spent some time riding around the non-flooded streets and outskirts of town seeing some cool temples that we hadn’t seen yet.

We saw some awesome views and also found another cool temple in the distance that we want to try and find next time we’re here.  Tim when you get here, we have heaps of cool things for you to ride to with us and see!  Tomorrow, if the rain holds off, we’ll head back to Luang Namtha.  Our photos are here.