We used the same Taxi Chiang Mai taxi service that picked us up at the airport for our car transfer from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai. It was a relatively easy 3.5 hour drive through mostly open countryside.

About half way we made a fuel and rest stop at the Mae Kachan Hot Spring. There are a wide range of shops selling full meals, snacks, all forms of drink, typical souvenirs and local food specialties plus public restrooms. Additionally there are vendors selling fresh eggs and little baskets for travelers to use to cook in the steaming hot springs that dot the parking lot.

As we approached the outskirts of Chiang Rai, the driver suggested we make a stop at the Wat Rong Khun, better known to tourists as the White Temple.

While the Temple is filled with Buddhist icons, it is really more of an art installation than many other temples we’ve visited in Southeast Asia. It is a modern (1997) creation of Chiang Rai artist Chalermchai Kositpipat and mixes traditional themes and colors with Chalermchai’s interpretations.

One very memorable display was of a sea of forearms and reaching hands rising out of the mire alongside the bridge that leads to the centerpiece Temple.

After about an hour at the complex the driver took us the short distance to the center city and the PAH (Peace and Happiness) Hotel, our home for the next 3-nights.

The PAH is a decent hotel trying hard to please its guests. It’s in a good location a half block from Thanon Baanpa Pragarn Road making it a short walk to temples, restaurants and shopping.

The hotel offers a lot of nice touches like modern and traditional art and fixtures like these lights, a free mini-bar with beer, water, fruit juice and snacks (savory and pound cake) in the room, a nice 24-hour self-serve coffee maker dispensing Expresso and Americano by the lobby, a good (but not great) breakfast, comfortable beds, modern bathrooms, strong WI-FI and effective a/c.

The front desk was extremely friendly and tried to be helpful but to be perfectly honest, we had some difficulty explaining exactly what we wanted to do in the city when trying to make arrangements for a day of regional touring.

But we had more important things to take care of on this day so after a brief stop in our room to freshen up we headed out to try what is considered by many to be the best Khao Soi in the city at Phor Jai Khao Soi.

This place is extremely popular with locals (always a good sign) and while it serves a few other dishes, as the name suggests the Northern Thailand specialty Khao Soi is the reason people eat there.

We tried the chicken and shrimp versions and both were good. The Lady of the house does not smile very much but she serves a very good bowl of Khao Soi for 40 Baht or about $1.35 USD that is hard to beat! I really liked the complimentary condiments, especially the pickled onions.

We made a slow walk back to the hotel after dinner checking out (mostly textile) shops, restaurants and city landmarks like the Golden Clock Tower (on the same street as Phor Jai) and Wat Ming Mueang Temple (virtually across the street from the PAH) shown here in a photo taken later that evening.

After a nice nap and taking advantage of the strong Wi-Fi at the hotel to catch up on world events and our email; we were ready for dinner and walked about 10 minutes to Jatujak Gallery & Restaurant. It is a very pretty room with excellent service and some interesting artwork on the walls. Our favorite dishes were shrimp roll on a lemon grass stick and morning glory salad.

All told, for dinner that night the two of us shared a green chicken curry, the shrimp roll, morning glory salad and a papaya salad plus a beer and a bottle of water for about 875 Baht (or less than $30 USD) including service. We thought it was extremely good quality for that price.

While we were in the neighborhood we got our first exposure to the Chiang Rai Night Bazaar and met the very nice lady owner at her Northern Hand Woven shop.

I’m afraid we didn’t get her name but not only did she have some reasonably priced top quality textiles she had personally picked from weavers across the region she was also very generous with her great knowledge of all things textiles of Northern Thailand.

We had been trying to nail down some details for a visit to Ban Hat Bai weaving village on the way to our next destination of Chiang Khong and she told us what to look for and wrote out directions in English and Thai to give to our driver.

The Night Bazaar is well worth a visit if you are in Chiang Rai. Some shops have household items but most are selling inexpensive clothing and typical tourist souvenirs.

We didn’t eat a meal there but we strolled by a good selection of food vendors; many of which looked and smelled just great and we did pick up a few snacks to take away with us. There is a central courtyard with tables and chairs and both nights we visited there was live music.

On our first full day in Chiang Rai we booked a car through the hotel with the plan of looking for textiles in general and one specific weaving village.

This was the subject of the confusion in explaining our objectives for the day mentioned above. As we were discussing our schedule the hotel clerk kept suggesting other places for us to visit and wanted us to hire the car for 10-hours but we went with 6, which was about the least they would accept.

Our first stop was the very interesting Baandam Museum (known to tourists as the Black Temple). This is a large campus of roughly 30 buildings of varying sizes but all painted black; and each displaying unique exhibits.

It is the creation of and features the multi-discipline artwork of Thawan Duchanee. There are lots of paintings, sculpture, woodwork, animal furs, skins & bones, some religious pieces as well as a bit of erotica and a whole herd’s worth of buffalo horns. Some might find it bit spooky or even creepy but we thought it was pretty cool.

During the course of our day we saw a giant image of Kwan Yin (that for some reason the locals call “Big Buddha”) and enjoyed beautiful countryside; some on the way to a tea plantation that we never intended to visit.

We did find one Black Hmong village where there was some limited weaving going on but the main craft there was tie dying cotton fabrics with indigo using the lost wax technique.

We liked the fabrics displayed in one workshop in particular and spent some time talking to the owners and after we were there for a while they pulled out some even better product from another room. So the day wasn’t a complete textile bust but never did find the weaving village we were looking for.

After a bit more driving around and not finding what we were looking for we decided to call it a day and head back towards the city center.

Since we had enjoyed our Khao Soi so much the day before we asked the driver to drop us off back at Phor Jai and we enjoyed another great bowl of noodle soup. We thought the driver would be taking off when he dropped us but as it turned out, he decided to have a bowl for his own lunch and hung around to take us back to the hotel when we all were finished.

We wanted to pay another visit to the Night Bazaar that night and had enjoyed our meal at Jatujak Gallery & Restaurant so keeping with our theme of returning to restaurants on consecutive days we headed back there for a 2nd time and was happy to find it just as good as the night before

Confirming just how good the location of the PAH was, we spent our entire morning of our last full day in Chiang Rai on Trairat Rd. From the entry of PAH Hotel we took a right and walked towards Wat Phra Kaew Temple and Museum (19 หมู่ที่ 1 Trairat Rd, Wiang, Mueang Chiang Rai District, Chiang Rai 5700, which was the former home of the Emerald Buddha before transfer to Lao and ultimately to Bangkok.

As best we can recollect, this is the 4th temple we have visited in Thailand and Lao that purports to be the “former” home of the iconic statue.

In addition to the central temple, we walked through the beautiful gardens with some unusual orchids and associated museum spread among multiple buildings.

When we finished up at Wat Phra Kaew we retraced our steps back towards the hotel on Trairat Rd, stopping at a little shop selling all sorts of products produced in the area hill tribe villagess and picked up a few small gifts.

Continuing back along Trairat Rd we walked a few feet past the hotel and stepped inside Kunda Vegan Vegetarian restaurant. We loved the menu notice: “First come, first served. Everyone is treated equal. No Tofu. No Wi-Fi. No Bookings. OPEN TO PUBLIC 9AM to 5:00PM.” (Note: I understand the hours are now extended and they do take bookings in the evenings.)

We had a delicious veggie burger with mozzarella and a great mixed salad with everything except lettuce: sunflower seeds, apple, toasted linseeds, broccoli, raisons, long beans, cashew nuts and probably some other stuff we couldn’t ID. We loved the Goji Berry, watermelon and lime juice smoothie. We spoke to the Australian owner (but not the French partner in the kitchen) and she was nice enough to comp a vegan chocolate bar for dessert. She told us of future plans to turn the upper floors into a guesthouse.

The short version of the story is: After moving to Chiang Rai from a southern Thai beach, (at the time we visited) it had been open at this location for less than a year and in that short time was then (and is still now at this writing) ranked the #1 restaurant in Chiang Rai on TripAdvisor. It’s a cute space serving great food & drink and (if this is possible) very good while kind of slow service and an intoxicating peaceful vibe.

Later that evening, as we were getting ready to walk out of the hotel lobby we could hear loud music and loudspeakers coming from the direction of Thanon Baanpa Pragarn Road. That’s the Main Street for Central Chiang Rai and the road we were planning to walk down on our way to dinner. As we approached the road we realized we were in the middle of the Parade for the Flower Festival.

The parade showcased colorful floats featuring pretty girls in traditional clothing and giant papier mache men in hats sail by on pushcarts while men bang away on huge drums! We followed the parade till we reached a good stopping point at the Golden Clock Tower and used that as the backdrop for these photos!

After getting our fill of photos we walked the couple block from there to the Oak & Awe Coffee House. This place features an inexpensive International, Thai, European mixed menu. For us it was a meal of veggie spring rolls, fish & chips and pineapple & chicken fried rice with curry powder. There aren’t many tables and we found it a bit of a tight squeeze but we enjoyed the food for a very reasonable price. It’s located just half a block down from Khao Soi Phor Jai at 1021 Jetyod Road, Chiang Rai, Thailand / +66 81 023 4164