Wat Phra Singh Chiang Rai

Wat Phra Singh sits on Tha Luang Road in Chiang Rai’s old town, close to the Provincial Hall — a working temple, not a museum piece, and easy to fold into an old-town walk that also takes in Wat Phra Kaew and Wat Klang Wiang. Entry is free and it’s open daily from 06:00 to 18:30.

The temple’s name traces to a 14th-century episode in Lanna history. Chao Maha Phrom, younger brother of Chiang Mai’s King Kue Na, borrowed the original Phra Phuttha Sihing Buddha image — the one now enshrined at Wihan Lai Kham in Chiang Mai’s Wat Phra Singh — to use as a model for a replica cast here in Chiang Rai. That replica, a Lanna-style Buddha in the Subduing Mara pose, is solid gold, 37 cm across the lap and 66 cm tall, and still sits in the temple’s Phra Singh Hall. A stone slab nearby holds a carved Buddha footprint said to date from the reign of King Mengrai, the king who founded Chiang Rai in 1262.

The most distinctive feature isn’t the Buddha image but the door panels. Thawan Duchani, one of Thailand’s National Artists in visual arts, designed the carvings — sculpted by Sala Amnui Bua-ngam — depicting the four elements: earth, water, wind, and fire. They’re worth a slow look on the way in; the detail rewards a few minutes rather than a walk-past.

Insider Tip: Chiang Rai’s old town has a tight cluster of temples within a 15-minute walk of each other — Wat Phra Singh, Wat Phra Kaew, and Wat Klang Wiang. Doing all three back to back before 9 AM beats the heat and the tour groups that arrive later in the day.

Watch out: Because the name is identical to Chiang Mai’s far more famous Wat Phra Singh, some travel guides and even taxi apps conflate the two. If a driver assumes you mean Chiang Mai, confirm you want the temple on Tha Luang Road in Chiang Rai’s old town.

The grounds are modest compared to the Chiang Mai original, and that’s part of the appeal — no ticket booths, no crowd management, just a functioning neighbourhood temple with a genuinely old story attached to it. Plan 20–30 minutes here, longer if you want to sit in the shade of the viharn and take in the carving work properly.

Visit Chiang Rai for the rest of the old town, and pair this with Wat Phra Kaew Chiang Rai and Wat Rong Khun (the White Temple) for a fuller sense of the city’s very different temple architecture styles, from centuries-old Lanna brick to Chalermchai Kositpipat’s contemporary white stucco.