Baan Dam Is An Unusual Place To Visit.We had heard good things about ‘The Black House’ in Chiang Rai, otherwise known as ‘Baan Dam’ in Thai.
It is the proud work of Thawan Duchanee, a Chiang Rai born Thai artist who has developed a style of work representing the darkness in humanity. With lots of red and black hues, skins, skulls and various other animal parts made into eerie artwork.
The grounds span a large area and are filled with many interesting buildings, again adorned with lots of dead things, a whole elephant skeleton, an entire brown bear made into a bed sheet and a torture chamber to name just a few.
Unlike the better known and popular Chiang Rai attraction, The White Temple, there is no religious meaning to The Black House.
It feels more like a museum interspersed with interesting architecture, sculptures and art.
It is also much less known to tourists than the White Temple and harder to find. When we were there, just a couple of other people wandered the grounds, cameras in hand.
The Black House is open from 9am until 5pm but shuts for an hour at mid day.To find the Black House, head North on the Highway 1 from Chiang Rai, over the river, then past the international airport on the right and Chiang Rai Rajabhat University on the left hand side (CRU), look out for a purple sign on the left that says National Artist - Thawan Duchanee.
While following directions we actually missed this sign but after 10km done a u-turn and found the sign on the opposite side of the road.
Take a left at the wooden road sign which says 13. (this means Moo 13) keep a close eye out for it as we managed to miss this as well.