It's time for Watstravaganza 2007!

Chiang Mai, 28 May 2007

With one day left in Chiang Mai, it was time to hit the streets and see wat's to be seen in the second largest city in Thailand!

Had to start out with the one pun. 

Now, sadly, we know just about nothing about Buddhism, much less the variety called Theravada that's practiced in Thailand.  But we knew we wanted to see the Buddhist temples, or wats, that make up a good chunk of the city of Chiang Mai. 

There are over 300 wats to be seen in Chiang Mai, and they're not particularly close to each other.  What we elected to do, over a mediocre plate of noodles early in the morning, was charter a tuk-tuk and ask the driver to take us to a selection of the temples.

We found a likely guy who spoke a smattering of English and hired him for the sum of 50 baht per hour, or about $1.70.  He started us out at one of the most famous wats in town, the Wat Chiang Mun.  (Or Chiang Man.  It's all transliterated, baybee!)

Some of the wats were surprisingly old, including this one.  It dates to the period just after 1296, when the city of Chiang Mai was founded.

We went into the dark interior to see the very, very old images of Buddha contained inside - they're really small, and behind bars.  One is a stone Buddha believed to be 2500 years old.

On our way out, a woman squatting on the porch asked me if I would like to release a couple of birds for good luck.  We decided to go ahead - I mean, we were two days off of our third anniversary, and it seemed like it could be an auspicious start to our fourth year as a married couple.

Initially, they refused to leave the basket until I gave it a little shake.  Then the two birds took off across the rooftops.  Our driver saw us and said "Yes, yes - many good luck!"

Later on, I read that many of these birds have their wings clipped so they can be easily recollected for another tourist to release.  Aw, crap.  I hope that wasn't what was going on here, since like I said they did take off over the rooftops across the street.

Before visiting any of the wats, we read up on wat etiquette.  We didn't want to do anything to offend because we were unaware of the rules.  Honestly, when I read "women should not climb on chedis (stupas)", I blanched since I didn't know what those were.  What if I was just climbing around like some kind of monkeychild and accidentally jumped on the chedi?  I didn't know a chedi from an apartment block!

I shouldn't have worried.  It's pretty clear on seeing your first wat.

And even if there hadn't been signs, it becomes very clear very quickly what the chedis are.  They're usually pretty tall, bell-shaped towers holding relics.  And they have a sign on them that women should stay out.

It was already really hot outside, so we moved on to wat #2 - Wat Lok Molee.

Wat Lok Molee didn't impress too much from the outside - at least not compared to Wat Chiang Mun.  The gilded Buddhas inside were very nice, though, and you could actually see the smaller images here.  The large seated Buddha is in a meditative pose.

Outside, we saw a number of Buddha statues connected by string - we were unable to figure out what that meant, except that there was apparently some sort of festival coming up.  But we couldn't learn what sort of festival.

Moving on, we tuk-tuk'd over to Wat Pa Pao, another of the more famed wats.  It was built in the Burmese style 400 years ago, and continues to serve Chiang Mai's Shan community, who are originally from Burma.  (Chiang Mai itself was under Burmese control from 1556 to 1775, when the kingdom of Thailand was united.)

The glass mosaics were really striking in the hot, direct sunlight.

Some parts of the temple compound were showing their age. 

There were English classes going on in the back of the enclosed area - a sweating American was teaching 20 or so young boys in bright orange robes the days of the week.  "Today is?" "MONDAY!" "Tomorrow is?" "TUESDAY!"

Moving on, back in the tuk-tuk!  Our driver said there was a wat a little ways out of town that had an attached museum where we could learn more about wats, so we puttered our way over to Wat Gate Khar Rnam.  Yeah.

We took a route that went around the old city walls - most of them still stand and seem to be in pretty good repair, but there are parts that are more than atmospherically decaying.

By the time we got to Wat Gate Khar Rnam, the museum was closed for the midday break.  No matter the country, we are accomplished masters at locating and touring during the midday break.  The temple complex itself was nice to wander around, though, with lots of shade trees.

We wandered around the lot.  Husbear took some shots of various details, including this beastie who I think is rather appealing.  Maybe I like him because he looks so shifty-eyed?

I hadn't mentioned this, but there were packs of stray dogs at a lot of the wats we visited.  They didn't approach us, and we certainly didn't approach them.

By this point, I think our tuk-tuk driver was getting pretty irritated with us.  We'd shrugged off his offers to take us to the boat (and wait several hours until we returned - remember, we'd chartered him by the hour) and given him a very definite "no" when he wanted to take us to a silver shop where we figured he was getting a commission.

We asked him to take us to one more wat.  He did, and told us when he dropped us off that we were very close to our hotel.  Sure, we figured, not wanting to antagonize him, and we paid him with a nice tip.

The last wat was Wat Bupparam, or Bupharam.  (Thai transliterations were more than a little tricky, especially the practice of using an h to create a hard consonant.  Thus, "Ph" is a hard "P' sound, not an "F", and "Th" is a hard "T", not a "th.")

The first thing we saw when we walked through the gate?

I have no idea why this would be.  And he wasn't the only cartoon character!  There were statues of all sorts of children's characters scattered around the complex, along with fiberglass chickens.  A group of real chickens and roosters scratched around in the dirt.

These figures on the doorframe are performing a "wai", a Thai mark of respect.  Newscasters on TV do it when they sign off, children do it to their elders, students to teachers, professionals to bosses.  There's an intricate code governing the wai, which luckily farang aren't expected to grasp immediately.

The most wonderful wai ever? Here.

Wat Bupparam had a very cool banister of naga, the serpents we saw at many of the wats. 

And a bouquet of dragons.  Don't bring this on a first date - she'll have to find a huge vase, and you'll be standing there on a doorstep awkwardly wondering, "do I come in, or should I wait to be invited?" and then she won't find a vase big enough and will have to lay the dragon heads down on the table where they'll wilt and four hours later she'll come home to a big pile of shriveled dragon heads and say, "dammit!"

Free advice, from me to you.

No big shock here, but as it turned out we were more than a mile from our hotel.  Of course, we'd been sitting in a tuk-tuk all day, so this wasn't a big deal - plus the walk was along one of the more interesting shopping streets in town.

After we made our way back through the walls, we figured we deserved a beer and a giant mug of fresh water, so we stopped at an inviting little bar populated by expats and Thai bargirls. 

They even had a full menu, of which we did not avail ourselves.  Yeesh.

When we got back to the hotel, we of course spent several more hours during the heat of the day out by the pool.  Then, we hopped a tuk-tuk over to the regular night market, which is so successful that Bangkok modeled theirs after it.

We shopped and shopped and shopped.  Husbear's a much better negotiator than I am - even I couldn't tell most of the time if he really wanted whatever he was bargaining for or if he was prepared to walk! 

Tomorrow in my chronology, we take two planes to Saigon, otherwise known as Ho Chi Minh City, and eat the first three of what's bound to be a metric ton of banh mi, an obsession we've had for quite some time.

Comments

[maryn]

just found your blog and am loving it. regarding the dogs: it's quite common for wats to be feeding stations for strays, and/or for people to drop unwanted puppies, etc. off for the monks to take care of. in BKK and further south, there are animal-rescue groups (of civilians) based at some of the wats, but they are based there because the dogs were there already...

[rooney]

Maryn, I found this blog about a year ago. It is perhaps the most well-written blog I've experienced. I don't know this couple, but look forward to each and every entry. You'll have a wonderful time going through the archives.

[Su-Lin]

Hi again! I know I usually "see" you guys on Flickr but I thought I'd just chime in here and let you know that I'm really enjoying reading about your trip to Asia!

[Girlie]

Wow - thanks so much, you guys! For the information and the compliments!

Maryn, on eatingasia I saw a little information about a dog rescue in Chiang Mai as well. That clears up why the wats were so full of dogs!

Rooney, I'm blushing! That's high praise!

Su-lin, thank you! I'm going to have to go check out your blog - I haven't had the opportunity to visit it!