8/4/10 (chiang mai)
Annie LinChiang Mai
After a full night’s rest and a few hours of reacquainting ourselves with driving a car yesterday we were ready to explore the city. Before leaving Mr. Sak provided us with clear instructions on how to reach our destination. He reminded me a lot of my father with his exactness in driving and road conditions. He would tell us when to turn on a road based in kilometers and the road conditions to expect along the way. His kindness touched our hearts.
Our first stop was the Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, considered one of the most sacred temples in the north. To reach the temple we drove up a summit, which reminded us of the roads in New Zealand. In some parts there were only two lanes though it was only as wide as one car and it was very lush and green everywhere. Once we got to the base of the temple there were 306 steps waiting for us. There is also a tram you can take instead of walking the steps but we figured we were young and fit enough to tackle the steps. Luckily, the step were evenly spaced out and seemed newly constructed versus the steps at the temple in Battambang. After catching our breath we walked around the temple. In the center of the temple is a huge shrine encased in gold. There was construction going on so it didn’t make for the best photo spot but it was still an amazing sight. Around the shrine there were smaller prayer rooms with statues of various deities. In one of the rooms there was a monk offering blessings to people. After the blessing people approached the monk for a wristband made from yarn. In the Thai tradition women are not supposed to get close to the monks or have any physical contact with them so the only the men went to the monk to get the wristbands while the women went to an assistant sitting next to the monk.
Mr. Sak recommended that we visit the royal family’s winter palace after the temple. When we arrived there were about a hundred middle school children waiting to enter the palace. We decided to grab some lunch and wait for the crowd to thin out. But then a thick layer of fog rolled in and we figured if we went into the palace it would be hard to see anything. We skipped the palace and continued on the road to a Hmong village. There were two villages mentioned in the guidebook and one was off the beaten path so we decided to explore the road less taken. It did prove to be less explored as the paved road turned into gravel roads and became treacherous in some parts. When we arrived at the Hmong village it looked as if it was deserted. There were only a few people near a roadside convenience shop. We did see a lot of dogs and they laid around looking lethargic. They weren’t too curious about us and we had to weave around them on the road since they didn’t even bother to get up. We decided to drive further down the road and stumbled upon an elementary school. There were some people knitting but it didn’t appear that they spoke any English. We saw the biggest rooster ever standing on top of its wooden cage staring down at its little chicken subjects. There were wooden houses, some look like they had been built decades ago and not in the best conditions, along dirt paths and surprisingly there were solar panels next to some of the houses. I was surprised to see solar panels, which is a modern invention, in a village that appeared to have been unchanged for decades.
As we headed back to the city we made a pit stop at a coffee shop along the hillside near the Hmong village. The shop overlooked the valley and reminded us of some of the places we had been on our travels. Continuing down the road we made another stop at a vista point overlooking the city. We didn’t realize how big Chiang Mai was even though it is the second biggest city in Thailand. In the distance we saw two rainstorms approaching the city from different directions. It was an awesome view.
One of the things we had been curious about was how the monks lived in Thailand. Every morning you see monks going out to get their daily meals from the public. The monks will go from shop to shop to collect food or money and in return offer the shops a blessing. It had been hard to talk to monks since we are not sure if we can approach them to ask questions and if they speak English. So when we found out about monk chats we were very excited. There are a few temples that have a Buddhist university attached them. The universities created monk chats as a way for monks to practice their English and for foreigners to ask questions about monk life and Buddhism. We visited Wat Suan Dok where there was a monk chat from 5-7pm. We sat around a table with monks from Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos. We met a monk from Cambodia who was the most talkative though some were just there to practice their listening skills. It was interesting to hear his perspective on Cambodia as he was about seven years old when the Khmer Rouge was coming into power. We also learned that the color the monks wear doesn’t have any significance though many of them choose the yellowish orange color as it resembles the mature life cycle of a leaf. Overall it was an engaging experience and opened our minds.
After a long day of exploring we were ready to head back to Mr. Sak’s restaurant to have some dinner. He was very excited to hear about our day and impressed with our determination to climb the temple steps. He also helped us plan our next day of sightseeing in kilometers.
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