Wat Rong Khun - The White Temple

Wat Rong Khun is one artist's vision rendered in plaster and mirror: Chalermchai Kositpipat began his all-white temple outside Chiang Rai in 1997 and has been elaborating it ever since, funded by his own art earnings and donations, with completion projected decades away. The white stands for the Buddha's purity, the embedded mirror fragments for his wisdom flashing in the sun, and the approach makes the theology physical - visitors cross a bridge over a pit of sculpted hands reaching up from desire toward the cycle's escape. Inside the ubosot, murals swerve from tradition into pop culture's icons woven among the flames of craving; outside, the gilded building - housing, with deliberate irony, the toilets - argues that gold belongs to the body while white belongs to the mind. It is a working artwork, a pilgrimage of contemporary Thai imagination, and Chiang Rai's defining stop.

Highlights

• The mirrored ubosot - white plaster and glass flashing in the sun.
• The bridge over the hands - desire's pit crossed on the way to the hall.
• The golden building - the artist's gilded joke housing the toilets.
• The murals - tradition and pop culture tangled in the flames.

When to go

November to February for cool air and blue-sky glare on the white; arrive at opening or late afternoon to dodge the tour-bus waves. Midday light is blinding and brilliant in equal measure.

What to expect

It is contemporary art with temple manners - dress modestly, follow the photography signs inside, and expect scaffolding somewhere as the complex keeps growing. Crowds are constant; the small foreigner fee is fair.

Nearby

Chiang Rai's Blue Temple, the Baan Dam Black House and the city's golden clock tower.