Beautiful Chiang Rai

Although we only stayed in the Chiang Rai area for a few days, I was quite taken with some of the local sights, especially a mysterious "art gallery" and the "white temple."

After visiting a tourist trap of a "hilltribe village" with lots of curio shops and elephants not fed enough so that they're hankering for the fruits that farang (tourists) buy to hand-feed them, we were taken to a place called an "art gallery," though really it's a museum. Apparently, this eccentric (an understatement, more like the Thai Salvador Dali) has opened up his personal estate for visitors but it's on the q.t. (shhh!). When you arrive, you see a huge, new-ish building in contemporary Thai style (which is modern yet old school, simultaneous-like) and then maybe twenty other smaller buildings of various shapes and sizes. Basically, you walk around and gaze at the absuridites, curiosities, and psychadelia of his world. Imagine one building has dozens of animal skins and busts; another has all sorts of different Buddhas; a third has furniture mostly made out of cow horns; another is dedicated to the women's sex, a la Georgia O'Keefe (think lots of conch shells and other objects that highlight her); et cetera, et cetera. I was reminded of the most excellent Storm King Art Center in the Hudson River Valley of New York but if the artist had constructed the entire thing while on psycadelics.

The following day, we visited Chiang Rai's most well-known wat, nicknamed the "white temple." Designed by a local boy made into a famous artist, he has constructed a wat that nods to the old while remaining true to his vision of Buddhism along with his artistic style. Like some other new wats, this one is constructed out of cement painted bright white along with gazillions of mirrored tiles so that it reflects the sun brilliantly. You cross over a bridge that represents our world/life, which is one of suffering and hell (samsara or suffering). Then you enter into a lovely, large room that has several Buddha and a fascinating, still in-progress mural painted by the artist. In it, among other images, you see the World Trade Center burning and a gas pump turning into a demon, suggesting that America's addiction to oil had something to do with the attacks; not an unreasonable conclusion, as we've got troops in Saudi Arabia (and Iraq and Kuwait, etc) because of our dependence (recall W's State of the Union address, America's "addiciton" to oil). His paintings are New Age by way of Thai Buddhism. In the 1970s, he would be creating artwork for the album covers of Yes.

We also tagged Chiang Rai's night bazaar where, yes, I ate a cricket. I still can't decide if insects are copacetic for this particular vegan but I ate it anyway. It's crunchy and salty and not addictive. Cross that one off the list...