Wat Hiranyawat

Wat Hiranyawat sits in Tambon Koh Chang, Mae Sai district — about 15km from Mae Sai town in the far north of Chiang Rai province, in the same northern border region as Doi Mae Salong, near the Golden Triangle. The temple was formally registered in 1972 under an earlier name, Wat Mueang Daeng Noi, making it a relatively young temple by Thai standards.

Its main draw is Phra Sing San Chana Man, a Buddha image woven entirely from bamboo — reportedly the largest bamboo-woven Buddha in the country. Craftsmen used more than 39,000 individual bamboo strips over 99 days to complete it in 2009, seated in the Chiang Saen lion pose associated with far-northern Thai Buddhist art. Behind the main image stands a matching bamboo-woven stupa, said to house Buddhist relics beneath Burmese-style ornamentation.

Insider Tip: Come for the weave itself, not for crowds — this is a working local temple well off the main Chiang Rai tourist track, so you’re more likely to have the viharn to yourself than at the White Temple or Blue Temple closer to the city.

Large elephant statues stand in the temple grounds, a common feature of temples in this part of the north where elephants carried teak logs and pilgrims alike through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As with any working temple, cover your shoulders and knees and remove your shoes before entering the viharn.

Two other Mae Sai-district temples make sense to combine with a visit here: Wat Phra That Doi Wao, on a hilltop overlooking Mae Sai town itself, and Tham Luang–Khun Nam Nang Non National Park, the cave that made international headlines in the 2018 rescue. Both sit closer to Mae Sai town than to Doi Mae Salong’s tea hills.