Chiang Khong to Chiang Rai

By bus the journey from Chiang Khong to Chiang Rai is scheduled to take from 1 hour 30 minutes to 2 hours depending upon which service you take.

Bus Times from Chiang Khong to Chiang Rai

There are currently 4 services a day from Chiang Khong to Chiang Rai available to book online.

Buy Tickets from Chiang Khong to Chiang Rai

Use the Search Box to buy your tickets from Chiang Khong to Chiang Rai.

Chiang Khong Bus Stop

Bus services from Chiang Khong to Chiang Rai commence with a pick up from any hotel in Chiang Khong Town.

Chiang Rai Bus Station

Bus services from Chiang Khong to Chiang Rai include a transfer to any hotel in Chiang Rai City.

About Travel to Chiang Rai

Chiang Rai is a fairly popular tourist destination attracting an estimated 6 million leisure visitors a year, about three quarters of million of which are foreign tourists. Chiang Rai does not have as wide a range of visitor attractions as Chiang Mai but it does have a number of very spectacular temples and the province as a whole is less developed than many other parts of Thailand.

Staying in Chiang Rai

Chiang Rai is a compact city. The city centre has a population of about 70,000, with a total of around 200,000 living in the wider metropolitan area. Amenities for leisure visitors, particularly hotels and restaurants, are mostly clustered around the Phaholyothin Road in the centre of the city. A wide range of international cuisines are served in the city centre restaurants. What Chiang Rai does not have, however, is much in the way of nightlife. It’s not that type of destination.

White Temple

Chiang Rai has two large complexes and a range of smaller but spectacular temples which together are responsible for attracting the majority of the leisure visitors to the area. The most popular and famous of these is the White Temple (Wat Rong Khun) which is located 13 km by road to the south west of Chiang Rai City, and accessible via local bus services from Chiang Rai Bus Terminal 1.

The White Temple is an unusual and unique project first opened to the public in 1997 and currently still under construction. Designed and largely funded by a well known Thai artist, the White Temple is a concept driven re-imagining of a traditional Thai Buddhist temple with white plaster mixed with glass used to create ornate decorative features. The main feature of the temple complex is a series of bridges, walkways and buildings which visitors pass through as they walk from the entrance to the exit of this section of the wider temple. The artwork and design of the buildings is intended to illustrate Buddhist beliefs around the cycle of birth, death and re-birth.

Wat Huay Pla Kang

Located 8 km by road to the north west of Chiang Rai City, Wat Huay Pla Kang is the second of the two large temple complexes in Chiang Rai. Wat Huay Pla Kang is another recently constructed temple, founded in 2001 and the major structures at the temple completed in 2016.

Wat Huay Pla Kang is unusual in a number of respects. The temple is dedicated to a Chinese form of Buddhist and the statues and other religious images are different to typical Thai Buddhist temples. The other notable feature of this temple is its large scale. In particular Wat Huay Pla Kang has three very large structures which are very impressive:

• Guan Yin Statue: The most famous part of the temple is the 26 storey statue of the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, Guan Yin. The statue is massive and visitors can ascend by elevator to a viewing platform on the 25th Floor of the statue and look out through the eyes of the goddess.
• Prayer Hall: Wat Huay Pla Kang has an enormous prayer hall with a large white statue of the Lord Buddha. The prayer hall bears some similarities to the White Temple.
• Pagoda: The third large structure at Wat Huay Pla Kang is a 9 storey Chinese style pagoda. Inside the pagoda are lots of wooden statues.