Baan Dam: Kind Of Disturbing

A representative building at Baan Dam

This was the final stop on my "private driver" tour of the environs of Chiang Rai, where all the best and most popular tourist stops are to be found.

The Baan Dam is a (mostly) outdoors "museum" developed by the renowned (in Thailand) artist Thawan Duchanee.  It is a collection of wooden buildings, done in a Northern Thai style, which, for the most part, are black.

Think of it as a sort of "black temple," to complement the White Temple and Blue Temple elsewhere in Chiang Rai.

But "black" does not refer just to the colors of the wooden buildings.  This place is dark.

"Dark" in a cultish sort of way.

It is along a river:

So there is natural beauty in the surroundings.

But I'm not sure what these are supposed to be:

Only one of the three was open for a walk-through.

Inside was your basic small-space nightmarish dystopia scene.  With a tremendous echo in the acoustics because of the dome shape.  Note the cow to the left.

There were several cows, or skinny oxen, can't tell, tethered to trees on short ropes.  Don't know, don't care, the artistic purpose, short ropes for animals are not cool.

And given the "decorations" in the buildings -- which I did not photograph -- gives a more sinister intent to the treatment of these animals.

This was one of the less sinister displays:

Shall we go in?

No.  I don't think I will.  Even if I could.

Same with this building:

The exterior of this large building looks innocent enough.

Why there's even a happy looking elephant!

OK.

But even in this dark and sinister place, there is a February Christmas Tree:

And a giant chess piece:

Well, it looked like a giant knight waiting for a giant chessboard to me.

Not sure what this is supposed to be:

But the animal horns add a sinister element.

Enough of that building.

The one building that disturbed me sufficiently that I decided "no más" was the building that a huge number of animal bones and animal skins (most crocodile, but some mammals) strewn across the floor.  The artist is known for working with animal bones and skins -- this is not for the PETA patron -- but that display was so "over the top" it was time to head to the exits.

I'm not a hardcore animal rights activist by any means, but, no.  No.  I'm OK with the idea of eating the meat then using the whole animal, but this just seemed disturbingly wasteful.

Shock for the sake of shock.  Not art.

The highlight of the Black Temple?

Either that -- cool cars are always cool -- or the mango shake I enjoyed to cool me down at the coffee shop outside the musem.

Mmmmm.  Mango-y.