Chiang Mai: High Quality, Low Price

With our few short days in Chiang Mai we were able to fit in a more than reasonable amount of fun. We took advantage of Northern Thailand’s vibrant spices and flavors by indulging in a Thai cooking class, it was great to learn how to make curry paste from scratch and enjoy picking out the ingredients for the dishes we would make at the local market. 

At a recommendation of a friend, we checked out Woody’s Elephant Training and got up close and personal, and very filthy with some kind and fun elephants for a whole day. 

A few other self-indulgent activities we took part in were of course the ridiculously cheap massages (decent 1 hr. massage for $4 USD, sign me up!), and the chance to get some clothing tailor made.  We found a wonderful shop run by a pair of Nepali women who had been living in Thailand for decades and I ended up with a fantastic semi-formal silk dress, dress slacks, and a blouse.  All tailor cut to my measurements, with my choice of material, and for cheaper than I would find at a department store in America…what a concept!  Chiang Mai also has an amazing weekend night market that we spent hours wandering around admiring the handicrafts.   

One thing that makes Chiang Mai such a charming city it that although the city has a population of around 200,000, and the metro area up to almost 1 million, many conservation measures have been taken in terms of land use planning policies that allow the city keep its feel.  There is a ban on high-rise construction within 90 meters of a temple, the main river, and city walls/moats (old town is surrounded by a moat), so with so many temples in the city that means many areas without tall buildings.  I think I read that totals around 90% of the land within municipal limits.      

My apologies for not providing much insight or vivid descriptions in the last several posts, at this point I  just wanted to make sure and post some photos before I get too back logged J  Sometimes this travelogue is more for me to remember than for anyone reading, haha.  Hopefully I can post soon about the rest of Thailand and recent Rotary activities before heading off to Sumatra tomorrow and Laos next week!  Only two months and ten days left in S.E. Asia, oh my! 

Chiang Mai: City of Wats

After exploring the pleasant temple complexes of Sukhothai, we hopped a questionable bus north to Chiang Mai to enjoy a relaxing few days in the northern part of Thailand surrounded by mountains.  Mostly only able to explore the old town area on foot, we were amazed at the number of temples within the city.  It seemed like every 150 meters there was another beautifully ornate wat; it turns out there are over 300 temples in Chiang Mai.  Just up a hill overlooking the city is a particularly impressive temple called Wat Phra That Doi Suthep.  Legend has it that at a temple down the hill from Doi Suthep, there is Buddha relic that miraculously duplicated itself in the 14^th century.  As it was, the relic was mounted on the back of a white elephant and the animal was let loose to wander around until it “chose” a site on which a temple would be build to house the Buddha relic the elephant was carrying.  When it reached the site it lay down and died.

Adorable monk garden gnomes at Wat Phra That Doi Suthep.

If you haven't seen the cute movie Gnomeo and Juliet,
I highly recommend it.  This scene made me think of it :)

Sacred durian tree?

Stunning gold painted pagoda at Wat Phra That Doi Suthep,
one of the most sacred in all of Thailand.

One of my favorite Buddha postures, the walking Buddha.

The beautiful grounds of Wat Phra Singh.

More Temples at Sukhothai UNESCO World Heritage Site

After Ayutthaya we skipped town and headed north to Sukhothai, about half way to Chiang Mai.  This is the “low season” for tourism in this area of the country, not because it’s the rainy season, but because it is so incredibly hot.  While we were there, it reached 99°F!  Sukhothai Historical Park is beautiful and well kept.  A nice way to see the many temples is to rent a bicycle and cruise around for the day as the grounds are super flat.  We were motivated to hop on bikes, but by the time we checked into our guesthouse and developed a plan, the heat had already penetrated our already tired bodies and we opted for a tuk-tuk instead. 

Hiding from the sun with the driver's son.

The Sukhothai Kingdom existed from 1238 until 1438 and the park has over 40 temple remaining complexes.  This was the first notable kingdom of the Thai people (known as the Siamese by the Khmers).  The most well-know ruler of this time is credited with inventing the Thai alphabet and there is a famous stone here on which he recorded the history of Sukhothai.  Literally translated Sukhothai means “the dawn of happiness.” 

My best Mary Poppins impression.



Buddha's footprint.



Ayutthaya, Thailand

On our last day in the Bangkok area, Tomoko arranged for us to meet with a colleague from her newspaper in Japan who is working as a foreign correspondent.  It sounds like a cool job, but also very stressful as is in charge of reporting on the whole SE Asia region.  This means that when Malaysia has elections that he will be visiting KL to report on the happenings.

He was kind enough to take us out for day of sightseeing outside the city.  First we visited Bang Pa In, the summer palace of the kings of Thailand.  It’s an interesting combination of European, Chinese, and Thai architecture and the grounds were beautifully kept.  It’s located along the banks of the Chaopraya River and you can see how they had to go to great lengths to prevent the site from being flooded last fall when many areas in and around Bangkok were inundated.

Thai-style pavilion with the rather daunting title of "The Divine Seat of Personal Freedom."

The ruins at the Ayutthaya Historical Park (UNESCO World Heritage site) were not so fortunate in terms of the floods.  As we toured around, you could see the water line on many structures that had been left as many areas were surrounded by standing water for months.  The ground had been saturated and softened under some of the temple structures so it was no longer safe to walk directly in and around them and had to be closed off only to be viewed from a distance.  Ayutthaya was the Siamese royal capital from 1250 to 1767, and a Khmer outpost before that.  The Sanskrit name means “unassailable” or “undefeatable.”   

Many areas were damaged when the Burmese ransacked the place in 1767.

Bliss.

Later that evening he took us to a German Brewery for dinner and entertainment and we met up with two other Japanese correspondents from other news agencies.  It turned out that it was HUGE!  Touted as the “world’s best Thai-German bar and restaurant,” it could probably fit 500 people on multiple levels.  It did a decent job at east-meets-west and some pretty funny performances by well known Thai singers and dancers.

Bangkok in Between

Even though I was in Bangkok for almost a week, I only had a chance to do a little bit of sightseeing between all the convention activities.  Coming from Alaska, Kuala Lumpur seems like a big city, but going from KL to Bangkok is a whole different story.  Bangkok is home to at least 7.5 million people with 14.5 million in the greater metro area.  KL can only claim 1.6 million, although the greater KL area is about 7.2 million.  As I mentioned I was fortunate to stay with a fellow Ambassadorial Scholar during part of my time in the city and she had a beautiful view from the top of her building.  There are so many more sky scrapers in Bangkok; it’s really amazing to think of the sheer number people who live or work in those buildings and how we all co-exist.  For a charming account of living and studying in Bangkok, please check out Ashley's blog creatively titled Chasing Dreams and Curries!  She's really a much better blogger than I am, haha :) 

View of Bangkok from my friend's apartment.

One afternoon I snuck out to visit the famous Chatuchak Weekend Market.  Throughout my travels I have tried to limit the amount of goods/souvenirs/stuff that I buy, I still enjoy experiencing the markets just to see the crafts and of course enjoy the local foods!  I heard that this market was particularly huge and sold everything from silks to hip clothing, ceramics, fruits, puppies, birds, fish, and many other fluffy little creatures including these animals that looked something like baby squirrels (for pets, not eating...I think).  It’s so large that there’s actually an information booth (if you can find it).  I had to check at the info booth just to find my way back out of the market. 

Little turtles for sale at the Chatuchak Market.

As I mentioned in the last post, we had several activities with a sister Rotary Club in Bangkok and one of them was a night river boat cruise.  It happened to be on the night of the recent super moon so we were lucky to witness the huge moon peaking in and out from behind the clouds over the Bangkok cityscape.

Super moon rising over the banks of the Chao Phraya River, Bangkok.

The Grand Palace and Wat Pho where beautifully lit up at night. 
Hard to get good shots in the dark from a moving boat though!

Temple of Dawn....at night.

Super moon glowing from behind the cloud.

On one of the last days I headed out to visit the Grand Palace and some Wats (temples) nearby.  I knew they closed for the day in the mid-afternoon, so I made sure to rush over.  Well, unfortunately they don’t inform tourists when the Palace may randomly be closed for the day due to the Prince visiting and things like that, so when I showed up they said it had closed a noon and that I would have to come back the next day, oh well.  I did get to visit Wat Pho which made up for my disappointment because it features the largest reclining Buddha in Thailand.  In the reclining position it illustrates the passing of the Buddha into nirvana (i.e. the Buddha’s death).

This is an impressive statue at 46m long and 15m high!

Wat Pho is also the national headquarters for the teaching the preservation of traditional Thai medicine, including Thai massage.  So when you are hot, tired, and dehydrated, you can slip into an air conditioned building on the grounds and enjoy a foot massageJ.  There are many figures around the temple area depicting yoga techniques in which the original purpose was as visual aids. 

From there I opted to take another route back to the hotel by hopping a river boat taxi.  There were many locations along the river to catch a boat so I headed to the nearest one.  I arrived and it looked rather abandoned looking and there was no schedule so I thought I’d just wait a few minutes and if no boat came then I would wander on my way.  Eventually I saw one coming my way but it didn’t really look like it was slowing down.  It came straight toward where I was standing and the attendant just informed me to JUMP as the boat was still moving by!  Good thing I was wearing appropriate shoes or else I might have ended up in the very dirty river.