Doi Thung royal villa

Another place related with Somdet Ya, the mother of King Bhumiphol, is her royal villa in the north of Thailand. Located on a hilltop halfway between the town Chiang Rai and the Thai-Burmese border in Mae Sai, this villa was one of the most favorite residence places of the Princess Mother. The hilly landscape reminded her of her long-time home in Switzerland (though the hills there are much lower and it is much warmer), and it was in this area where she worked on helping the villagers to stop growing opium and selling their daughters into prostitution by teaching them to grow vegetables and other crops instead. The area around the royal villa even became a district named "Mae Fa Luang" in 1992 - Mae Fa Luang (mother from the sky) was the name she was know to the hill tribes.

The royal villa complex consists of three parts. One is of course the villa instead with a small flower garden around. As with all royal compounds one has to wear "appropriate" clothes to enter, or instead don one of the ugly blue overtrousers at the checkpoint not to show the bare legs. The buildings form a nice mixture of traditional northern Thai (Lanna) architecture with elements known from Switzerland like the flower boxes on the window. Located on the top of the hill, one has a beautiful view over the hills from the veranda.

On the other side of the street is a large flower garden, with small ponds, a circular flower bed, many orchids of course. Though I prefer the natural landscapes, this nicely designed artificial one was also enjoying.

Not far from the villa is another attraction, the temple Wat Phra That Doi Thung, which I will feature another time.

Wat Rong Khun

After leaving Mae Sai it was already late afternoon, so we arrived at the extraordinary tempe Wat Rong Khun (วัดร่องขุ่น) just shortly before it was closed for the day. I had never heard anything about the Thai artist Chalermchai Kositpipat before, so when hurrying through the gallery next to the temple before it was closed at 5 PM I did not get much about his art either. But that is no wonder, as I still don't know much about Thai Buddhism nor the Thai art. Anyway, even for a ignorant farang the temple is very impressive, and it's no wonder it is becoming a tourist attraction of Chiang Rai now.

The temple is located on Thai highway 1, on the way from the city Chiang Rai towards the south, about 10 km from the city. Exit at the intersection with road 1208. The temple is just a few metres away from the intersection, quite impossible to miss the striking white ornate building if you have taken the right exit from the main highway.

When we visited the place in 2006, the temple already looked nearly finished, at least the whole front part was complete, and construction was limited to the sides and behind of the central room holding the Buddha image - unlike normal temples it is actually a huge Buddha painting with only small statue in front. But already when you enter the temple over the bridge, the corpses in the water under the bridge are something never seen in Buddhist temples. But I guess to fully get all the symbolism within the building one has to find a book explaining all about it, but there was nothing like that in English in the souvenir shop. Maybe after the temple will be finished this year it will have someone bother to write something for those who cannot read Thai.

While I was strolling around the place, I was suddenly called to pose for a family photo - somehow someone from family caught the artist himself, and apparently he didn't mind to pose with us. Pity I did not know his importance then, otherwise I would have tried to do a portrait photo for Wikipedia as well.