Baan Dam, the Black House

North of Chiang Rai, roughly as far out as the White Temple is to the south, Baan Dam is the opposite mood: a compound of more than forty buildings in dark timber and northern styles, with horns and bones inside, the life's work of the national artist Thawan Duchanee. It is a private museum rather than a temple, with its own opening hours and its own signs about photography.

The black wood swallows light, so the strongest frames are outside, where dark gables stand against the sky and the lawns, or in doorways where the shade is even. It works in the late morning and early afternoon, when the White Temple is out of the question, and it suits a couple who would rather look like a still from a film than a postcard.

Follow the signs, treat the pieces inside as the art they are, and keep to the paths between the buildings. Some of the work is made of horns and bones, so with small children it is worth looking first. The cool season from November to February gives the clearest skies above the gables; from about February to April the haze can turn the sky flat and white.