Discover the must-sees of Chiang Rai, the northern Thai paradise
Must-sees places of Chiang Rai
- Wat Rong Khun, the white temple
- Wat Rong Suea Ten, the blue temple
- Wat Huay Pla Kang, the Chinese temple, also known as the red temple.
- Clock Tower
- Wat Phra Kaew
Description of the must-sees of Chiang Rai
Chiang Rai is a city in northern Thailand known mainly for its white, blue and red temples. The main tourist agencies offer tours that are dedicated exclusively to visit these three temples going from Chiang Mai and returning the same day. If you decide to do this, it is a bit of a chore because the trip from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai is about 3 hours and 30 minutes, so the round trip will be 7 hours. But the temples you see make this trip worthwhile.
In my opinion, it is worth staying at least one night in the city.
The main reason is that this way, you can see the main temples in a relaxed way during the day and, in addition, you can see the blue temple and the red (or Chinese) temple again at night, as they have a very nice illumination.
In the planning I did, I took the bus from Chiang Mai early, arriving in Chiang Rai before 11. As always in Asia, I recommend you to take the tickets if you can from 12go Asia, as it is a reliable website.
In the final part of this post, we will post Virtual Reality videos of the most beautiful places of this visit.
The first day we did:
- Check-in at the hotel.
- Go to rent a motorcycle, I rented it at JJ Motorbike Rentals and it went quite well. The price was around 200 baht and as a deposit you could leave money or a license.
- I usually respect motorcycles, in fact in the south of Thailand I would not rent them because of the way they drive, but in the north I decided to take it because I saw that they drive very slowly, the motorcyclist is very respected and the police do not stop the tourist to try to take advantage of him, as we have read that happens in other parts of the country. Important, in Thailand they drive the other way around than in Europe and the United States.
- See the white temple (Wat Rong Khun) in the morning. Opening hours:
- Monday to Friday: 8:00 to 17:00.
- Saturday and Sunday: from 8:00 to 17:30.
- Price: 100 baht per person.
Here it is important, they are pending by loudspeaker that you advance constantly. There is a one-way path in the visit and, unlike the rest of the temples, you will not be able to turn around and visit the temple again.
In the white temple compound, there are more things to see, such as a golden temple which is also quite beautiful.
- Visit the Night Market or, if you go on Saturday as in our case, the Saturday Walking Market. They open around 17:00, so we had dinner early to see the blue and Chinese temples illuminated at night.
- See the blue temple (Wat Rong Suea Ten) illuminated at night.
- Price: free
- Opening hours: 7:00 to 20:00.
- See the Chinese temple (Wat Huay Pla Kang) illuminated at night.
- Price: free but if you want to climb on top of the giant statue is 40 baht.
- Opening hours: 7:00 to 21:00.
On the second day, we went back to the temples we visited at night, the blue and the Chinese, as they look very different and are beautiful both during the day and at night:
- Blue temple in the morning:
- Chinese temple:
After this we went to leave the motorcycle, as we rented it for only 24 hours. Many people think that Chiang Mai is full of temples but in Chiang Rai there are only the 3 main ones, but that is not so, there are a lot of temples more.
Near where we rented the motorcycle, we have the Clock Tower as well as other temples, which we have located on the map, such as Wat Klang Wiang, Wat Phra Sing Chiang Rai, Wat Phra Kaew.
Wat Mung Muang
Wat Klang Wiang
Wat Phra Kaew
Clocktower
In the afternoon, as thanks to the bike we had time to see everything, we went for a shake / smoothie at a coffee shop with games Table, which we have also put on the map. It’s called Shanti Coffee and I gave it a 10 Google rating because they were really nice. We asked them to show us a typical Thai game that was triumphing and they showed us “The little Orchestra”. We loved it and one of the workers played with us because with three was more fun, he was very kind, explained the mechanics and we had a good time.
We also asked him to show us a game that everyone loves and he showed us Santorini, which I liked so much that I bought it in Singapore, the capital of board games.
