Day 46: Chiang Mai Wats

We spent today walking around the Chiang Mai old city. It's not hard to get around the old city on foot, since it's a 1 km square that takes less than 20 minutes to walk across. In spite of this, you don't see many pedestrians here, perhaps because the tuk-tuk (3 wheeled taxis) are so prolific and cheap.

Chiang Mai is home to some 700 temples (or wats) and we visited a couple of the more impressive of them. Wat Phra Singh was built in 1345 when Chiang Mai was still the capital of a kingdom spanning what is now northern Thailand. When we visited all of those temples in Bali, we were routinely assaulted by hawkers and "local guides" who wouldn't take no for an answer. In contrast Phra Singh was peaceful, shady, and stunningly beautiful. With the exception of a couple of tuk tuk drivers trying to drum up business, we were left entirely to ourselves.

stories rendered on the walls...
On our way back, we stopped in to one of the smaller temples, where there was some sort of big ceremony happening-rows of chanting monks, drums, boys dancing. But everything was written in the as of yet impenetrable Thai alphabet, so we had no clue what might be going on. Just as we were about to leave, a very friendly man from Singapore told us that this was an induction ceremony, and that those boys dancing were becoming monks today.

Our final stop for the day was at Wat Chedi Luang. "Chedi" is the Thai word for mound, and Chedi Luang is the tallest chedi in all of Thailand, at 84 meters. The main temple was destroyed by an earthquake in 1545, and shortly thereafter, Chiang Mai fell to the Burmese, so the temple was left in ruin until 1990 when it was partially restored by the Thai government. Today, it appears to be undergoing another extensive round of restorations, but we didn't see any explanation of this latest activity.

At the end of our visit, K had a "monk chat." Women are not allowed to sit next to or touch monks, but she had a nice conversation in which she asked them about the peculiar relics (mostly teeth and hair) we'd seen in the shrines, and answered their questions about the pronunciation of the English word "average."