Chiang Rai, Thailand: When we asked the owner of our guesthouse what we should do in Chiang Rai, she said “see the White Temple, of course.” This struck us as odd, because we hadn’t heard of the White Temple - turns out that’s because it’s brand new.
Brand new isn’t something you think of when you’re thinking of temples in Thailand, but this one is a contemporary work of art that is still under construction by the eccentric Chalermchai Kositpipat. The temple was beautiful, and looked almost like it was covered in snow, but it was also very odd; many of the images were not beautiful and serene, as they are in most Buddhist temples, but scary and horrible, representing the world that must be escaped to achieve Nirvana. Inside the temple there was an unbelievable mural that showed the evils of the world, represented by a giant demon with the Twin Towers in his mouth, Osama Bin Laden in one eye, and George W. Bush in the other. Unfortunately we couldn’t take pictures inside the temple, but check out the shots we got of the outside - beautiful and bizarre.
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