Not too far from the big city Chiang Mai, is a smaller town: Chiang Rai. It is famous for one of the most beautiful temples in Thailand: the White Temple. Me and three friends from the hostel took a bus to Chiang Rai, and rented some mopeds to discover the place.

When I was in Thailand, I paid it a short visit of 3 nights. We stayed in Mercy Hostel, which had a great location, close to restaurants and laundry places and moped rent places. It was more of a chill and clean hostel, which was perfect as we just came from a party hostel in Chiang Mai. So we could use some rest.

As you can see, I was there at sunset when the temple was already closed, so I didn’t get to go inside. But from the outside it is also really beautiful.

Next we visited the blue temple, also worth a visit I think, although it is much less famous.

Our last stop was the black house museum. This was more of an art show, kind of. I thought it was really beautiful though and there were Thai children performing traditional dancing and singing, which was really cool!

Apart from these things, there was not much else to do in Chiang Rai but I did enjoy it for a few days if you have some spare time. The temples are definitely worth a visit. I highly recommend its bigger sister: Chiang Mai.