loveliness.

The most beautiful temple we saw in Thailand (and we saw A LOT) was the White Temple. It was part of our day long trip to Chiang Rai, where we also saw the Golden Triangle, crossed the border to Laos, and visited some of the hill tribes.

I had seen pictures of the White Temple, but they were always small and it didn’t look very impressive, so I wasn’t that excited about it. But as soon as we jumped out of the van, and saw it in person, I was absolutely stunned.

It’s completely white, and every single inch of it is inlaid with metal and glass mosaic tiles. It had been cloudy all morning, but as we were walking up to the temple, the sun came out, and it was absolutely blinding. You couldn’t look directly at it without sunglasses on.

The temple was designed by one of Thailand’s most famous artists to honour the current King of Thailand, and it’s taken 7 years so far to complete. It’s not finished yet, and parts of it were damaged in a recent earthquake.

The premise is showing the difference between heaven and hell, heaven being the immaculate perfection of the temple, and hell being the thousands of hands reaching up, and the demons decorating the different corners of the temple grounds.

It’s totally gorgeous, and really interesting as well, definitely check it out if you are interested in art or religious culture.