Totally Thailand - Saturday, Nov-21

Today is my day off, which means I have no plans at all but to exchange some money, pay my bill at the Baan Bua Guesthouse, and visit Wat Rong Khun, the White Temple. I know, that sounds like a lot to do, but it doesn’t involve trekking or riding a bicycle for four hours, so as I see it, it’s an easy day.

I meet Monika, my neighbor at the guesthouse, and we exchange plans over coffee in the garden. She asks if she can join me, even though she had been there yesterday on a field trip with the children from her school. I adore her company and am delighted to have a friend to spend my day with.

She and I walk to the bus station and negotiate a songthaew to take us to Wat Rong Khun, 13km south of Chiang Rai. A songthaew, which literally means “two rows,” is a small pickup truck with two rows of bench seats facing each other. You can pick one up at the bus station or flag one down in the direction you’re going, and the fare is pretty inexpensive, depending on how far you’re going. Up here in the north the songthaews are blue, but they’re red in Chiang Mai and Bangkok, and I hear the yellow ones go farther out, sort of a long distance commuter vehicle. I’ve been on some pretty crowded ones with folks standing on the rear bumper and hanging on to the roof rail, and things get pretty comical when a monk gets on board and everyone has to rearrange themselves so that he’s not sitting next to a female passenger. As a rule, a crowded songthaew costs less than an empty one, but since it’s just Monika and me, we end up paying a couple of hundred baht to get to the White Temple, which is still cheaper than a subway ride in San Francisco so I don’t give it much thought.

Within a half hour or so we arrive at Wat Rong Khun. Chalermchai Kositpipat, a Thai artist who funded construction of the temple at his own expense, built Wat Rong Khun, and it is still a work in progress. A successful painter in his own right, Mr. Kositpipat wanted to create an elegant temple to honor Buddha’s purity, but the temple is unique in both its look and symbolism. The temple is unlike any in Thailand. It is a radiant white, and decorated with tiny silver mirrors that give the temple complex the overall impression that it is made of spun sugar and icing, accentuated even more by the curling, spiraling ends and sharp terminals that decorate the temple and statuary. Among sculptures of demons and angelic figures, it includes a Boschian sculpture of hands reaching up from Narok, the Buddhist version of hell. One of the hands flicks you the middle finger, its fingernail painted bright red. Even the carp in the adjacent ponds are white. Inside the temple, murals depicting an apocalyptic end-of-days feature pop culture imagery such as Neo from The Matrix, the Millennium Falcon, Superman and the alien from Alien. As Eleanor, my Kiwi friend might say, it’s so OTT. Even the toilets are ornate gilded pavilions.

Monika and I take it all in and then visit the gift shop where we peruse the artist’s prints for sale. They are really quite a fantastical lot. I buy a t-shirt for my older brother of a demon devouring some other being. It’s the kind of thing he’d wear when he’s performing.

Monika and I sit at one of the cafés nearby and talk and people-watch for the next two hours. I love her company, her gentleness, her gorgeous smile and her Amélie haircut. We discover many parallels between us: our fathers we merchant seamen; we are one of three siblings; we’re both born under the sign of the serpent. We talk and talk, our words flowing endlessly, mostly about love and sex and relationships. It’s almost four o’clock in the afternoon, and we decide it is time to find our way back to Chiang Rai before it begins to get dark. We walk the 500m or so to the main highway, and sit next to a police kiosk until we see a songthaew coming our way. We flag it down, hop on board, and eventually return to the bus station.

Monika and I regroup at eight o’clock. It is chilly tonight, so we go to the Night Market and buy ourselves cashmere pashminas. I find a brown one, embroidered with pink and green flowers, that matches the rest of my travel wardrobe, and pay around $12 USD for it. It will come in very handy during the remainder of my trip.

We walk to the Peace House where we meet Matteus, a fellow from Pittsburgh, USA of Polish parents whom Monika had met a few days ago. When he’s not around, Monika chuckles over his unusual Polish accent, but right now we are all speaking English. Matteus has a degree in Asian studies and is trying to get into the Foreign Service. He’s taken the test twice already and failed, so we all all wish him good luck and hope the third time is a charm.

Tonight, Aob and Gauthier are tending bar, and I share some of my photos from last night’s concert and get some photos of them so I can remember their faces. Aob comes over with a hollowed out bamboo section that he’s taken from a large terrarium. His pet hedgehog is inside, and we take turns petting him, but only in one direction else we end up with a bunch of quills sticking out of our palms.

Monika, Matteus, and I go to Coconuts Bar and I order fish and chips, my first farang food since I arrived. I thank Kevin, the Irish bar owner who, like everyone I’ve meet in Chiang Rai, is friendly and makes me feel quite at home.

By now it’s 12:30pm, and I must return to the Baan Bua Guesthouse to pack up my gear. Tomorrow I go to the Thai/Lao border to catch a slowboat down the Mekong to Luang Prabang. The two-day journey leaves in the morning from the border crossing at Huay Xai, Laos. After a lot of research, I found a tour operator who runs trips to Luang Prabang in a more comfortable alternative than the public boats. But the best part, Tim, the delightful owner of Baan Bua, will drive me to Chiang Khong on the Thai side of the border. I’m a little bit sad to leave Chiang Rai, and especially sorry to say goodbye to Monika, but I know another adventure awaits me down the river.

Tags: Chiang Rai, songthaew, Thailand, Wat Rong Khun