Another of Chiang Rai’s more extraordinary sites, in a town that’s blessed with several rather eccentric attractions, is the highly unusual Baan Dam. Commonly known as the Black House it’s a park containing a diverse and sprawling series of buildings, displays, sculptures and installations, lying in Ban Du district a short hop north of town. The park and highly eclectic contents are the lifetime’s work of local and nationally renowned artist Thawan Duchanee.
Despite occasionally, and mistakenly, called the ‘Black Temple’ this is not a religious site and the themes are apparently more general commentaries on the human condition rather than Buddhist, or even unorthodox Buddhist, as per the White Temple. While bewildered, or to put it bluntly gob-smacked, tourists wander around trying to make head or tail of it all, according to those that know far more we do on the subject, the intention is to represent the darkness inside man!
The dark wood is what gives the site its name
It certainly is very dark – not just in the colour of the black, aged teak constructions that give the site it’s name – but clearly in atmosphere as well and the principal aesthetic signature is dead animal parts. Most buildings, regardless of whatever else they may display, are ‘decorated’ with cow and buffalo skulls and horns though you’ll also see elephant bones and tusks, what looked like an entire whale skeleton, plus tables and chairs clad in bear or leopard pelts. (These grim objects were of course simply collected, not created, by the artist.)
