Arrived in Chaing Mai early this morning on Thai Airlines so this is flight # 4.
We are staying in the Holiday Inn which is a very nice hotel but somewhat isolated from the main part of town. Our room is on the 18th floor and is quite spacious so this is BED NUMBER 3!
We are always happy to see our guide waiting to greet us at the airport and there he was, Paul! He suggested that instead of having a free day that we allow him to move our Friday tour to today since we had arrived so early in the day. We agreed so, after checking into the hotel, we got a quick lite bite at the hotel and by 2:00 we were off to see the best temples in the area and to have a city tour too. We saw four temples: Wat Saun Dauk – built in 1371; Wat Phra Sing – built in 1345; Wat che Dilaung with its unusual pagoda - built in 1391; Wat ching Man – built in 1297. What impresses us both is the absolute and resolute faith of the Thai People and their constant support of the Monks and the building of new temples and the restoration of old ones through their donations. Every day between 5:45 a.m. And 6:30 a.m, people bring food for the Monks. The Monks choose what they want for themselves and then give the rest to the poor but saving some to feed the stray dogs left at the monastery for their care.
We then drove through the city learning that there are 1239 temples in the city which has a population of about 2 million people. We learned a lot from Paul about the history of Buddism, the history of Chaing Mai and more about the Buddhas, the current king and queen, the heir to the throne, as well as a little about the politics of the red shirts who support the exiled prime minister and the yellow shirts who support the current prime minister. I haven't been able to wear my red shirt or my yellow shorts as it is unwise at this period of unrest to wear these colors.
We also toured China Town and its extensive market. We tried to find some mangosteen to try as cousin Norman highly recommended it to us but the markets did not have any today due to the New Year Holiday and the demonstrations which halted rail travel over the past several days. It was very nice for us to finally be able to walk outside without being sprayed with water and also to be at ease since the unrest is over at least for the time being.
Tomorrow, we will start our tour of the most famous and oldest Temple located high above the city in the mountains. We are also going to visit the elephant part, take a one hour elephant ride to see the long neck women of the Lisu Tribe. We will actually ride through the jungle to get there. This should be a fun adventure.
Got back to the hotel at 5:00. Our guide recommended a traditional Thai Restaurant called Whole Earth Restaurant which is near the night market at 88 Sridonchai Rd. It was wonderful and inexpensive. We had to remove our shoes before entering the restaurant. We have had to do this at all the Temples but not at a restaurant before. We then walked to the night market which has so many stalls and shops that it was overwhelming. We were so tired that we couldn't stay long enough to make any purchases. We are sure that we will find more of the same knockoffs in other places. We took a tuk tuk back to the hotel and successfully negotiated a good price for the ride.
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