We arrived in Chiang Mai on time at 840 am and were greeted at Immigration with the Thai smiles - they must have known how excited we were to be there as its certainly not usual to get that amount of warmth from the immigration officers.
Chiang Mai was built in 1296 as a walled city surrounded by a moat. The old city was roughly 1.5km square. Whilst a good portion of the original city wall has collapsed the four corner bastions are still intact along with various other sections. The original moat is still in use to this day. The wall was built to keep the Burmese invaders out.
Our pickup for the Centara Duangtawan Hotel was right there waiting for us which is always a relief.
Check in was painless and one of our rooms was ready which was fantastic considering it was only 930 in the morning. We headed upstairs and made use of the complimentary breakfast of sorts. Once our second room was ready we made use of it to have a little bit of a snooze and get ready for the evening.
For our first night in Chiang Mai Mum had booked us a tuk tuk tour of the city. Our tour guide was Siphon, a young guy who has only recently left the monk hood. He told us that he entered service at age 10 and finished at 28, after becoming an instructor of sorts. We took off in convoy to see the city, past the remaining segments of wall that surrounds the old city and onwards. Our first stop was Wat Chedi Luang, a 600 year old temple that had seen better days. It had been badly damaged in the 16th century during an earthquake.
You can see from the picture that part of the top section is totally missing. In its former glory it had a row of elephants all the way around it, 28 to be exact. On one corner you can still see some of the original elephants.
They have built a new temple on the grounds too. I guess they need it as they have over 100 monks living on the compound and over 500 study here. The new building is very gold - the detail on it is amazing. Our guide is in the front of the pic below.
Naga's feature very heavily here - they're apparently very significant in Buddhism as they would rise up to protect Buddha. The northern ones are a little unique also in that if you look at them very carefully at the gold one, the statues are actually two serpents - one eating the other. They are always at the entrances to the buildings, again protecting people who enter.
Nate was able to ring the bells like the Monks do. He had to make a wish and then hit the big brass bell. I think maybe he made a few wishes as for a few seconds we had a bell symphony happening. Back on board the tuk tuks and we were off again. Nate got to ride side saddle up front next to the driver on our tuk tuk so he was stoked.
Next stop was another temple. This one was similar, but in the back of the temple grounds was a big reclining Buddha. Not as big as Wat Po in Bangkok (we will go see him next week), but still substantial.
Right next to the reclining Buddha is this guy below -
He looks like a Buddha but actually isn't. His story is quite funny. Apparently he was a hit with the ladies. He was showered with gifts and lots of food as he was always laughing and joking around. The chubbier he got the more popular he got, so then he prayed and prayed to Buddha to look like him. His wish was granted and he became known as the Happy Buddha.
Back in the tuk tuks again and we were off around the streets. The sun had pretty much set now so the atmosphere had really changed. We went down this side street and saw another little temple (oh yeah there are more than 300 registered temples here). Siphon told us that most of the temples were built after warring with the Burmese. The Thais felt badly about the war so built many temples to pray for forgiveness and to avoid being condemned to hell. This one has a very old statue of Buddha in it, but is housed in a building that is still being completed. Apparently the statue had been out in the middle of the street for many years but the locals felt bad that Buddha was always getting wet so built him a house.
We walked a little further up the street and discovered the Three Kings Monument. "The city of Chiang Mai, officially called Nopaburi Srinakornping Chiang Mai, was constructed and established as the capital city of the Lanna Thai Kingdom in 1296 by King Mangrai the Great in consultation with his two close friends, King Ramkamhaeng of Sukhothai and King Ngammuang of Phayao. Depicting the three kings in a friendly stance, this is one of Chiang Mai's most important monuments."
The next two stops were to two markets. The first was called Warowat market and is perhaps the largest and most central one here. They sell lots of food and any number of bits and pieces. Oh yes they sell bugs too. Crunchy crickets.
Just down the road from that was Ton Lamyai which is a flower market. The smell was beautiful, quite a contrast to the smells of the first market we saw. Lots of the flowers here are used at temples or shrines and they also make up 'gift buckets' that people can purchase to give to Monks.
Another short tuk tuk ride and we were at Muang Noi market which is known for its fruit and vegetables. By this stage we were absolutely buggered, in fact I happened to turn around in our tuk tuk to see Nate falling asleep in the front of the one behind us. So, we really couldn't be bothered in stopping that last time, but did anyways. Lucky we did, as we fell in love with a new fruit we hadn't tried before. No not Durian, the King fruit that stinks so badly that its banned in most hotels, but the Queen of fruits - Mangosteeen. I wish I could accurately describe the taste as they were yummo. The best I can do is that they're grapeish. Once you rip open the hard outer husk, the inner flesh is white and very sweet. Theres a cool little trick to them that if you look at the bottom of the fruit you can see how many segments will be inside us. Siphon told us that after doing his magic on us and accurately predicting the inner contents of each fruit. As you can see fruit is very cheap - a couple of kilos of little bananas are about a dollar, as are a kilo of mangosteen. The durian are similarly prices, although 40 years ago they were much rarer and would sell for $20 to $30 for a piece!. Siphon had much delight in telling us that it sent many a man broke if his pregnant wife were to crave it back then!
The tour then ended after a short trip back to the hotel over the river Ping. It was certainly a great way to see the city and considering the length of our day it was 2 hours very well spent.
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