Which, where, Wat?

  Chiang Mai, Thailand
Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Catholocism does not have a monopoly on Kitsch! While here, we have gotten to see a hologrammed Monk

Yoda!

, a Disco Buddha and what looked like Yoda in a temple in Leopard Print!! The Wat's (Buddhist Temples) are absolutely beautiful, but due to the sheer number become rather mundane. Chiang Mai alone has over 300, of which we think we saw about 50, and only really visited about 5!

Our Sunday was taken as a day of rest. We originally planned on making a Wat visit tally up to about 10 but ended up escaping the heat and sitting in a coffee shop. Turned out we had to escape the rain as well! We had by this stage walked a fair deal and only seen one Wat! After our recovery, we continued on in search of the elusive Wat's but with our short attention span were diverted to the Sunday Walking Market

in the sunday walking market

. This market at first seemed rather pleasant however after the national Anthem at six o'clock turned into a chaotic symphony. It felt like every vendor from every other market we had been too trying to sell their wares. With every local and farang trying to have a look. Amongst the swarm was a cocophony of sound, one end was a tuneless Thai strumming out "Dleams", a local troupe having an epileptic fit with cymbols matched against some bad elevator music over the PA system. Our noses were bombarded with the smells of street food and our eyes from the colour of stalls and people.

Monday's attempt at an early start were seriously thwated by our indecision. Finally we hired a 125cc scooter from an Englishman called Tony without any fuss! We took a drive up to Doi Suthep, stopping at a gorgeous waterfall on the way.

Stairs to Doi Suthep

Doi Suthep stands 1800m above sea level and overlooks the city. It has great views of Chiang Mai and the surrounding mountains. The Wat itself is about as golden as you could make any building without smelting it which would make it worth a fortune! Its origins start 600 years when a king sent off an important relic on a elephant. The elephant is reported to have wondered up the mountain and settled at the site and died. This obviously was a fortuitous place and a temple was built.

Once back in Chiang Mai we made the most of having "wheels" and went past the airport shopping complex - Sandton City on steroids, the night bizaar for seafood supper (500 grams of prawns for a fiver!) and then the riverside for dessert. Mike did most of the driving as Kirsty found the bike heavy and unfortunately couldn't be an "ambi-turner"!

Tuesday was adventure day, and we headed to the Mai Ping river. We started out with White Water Rafting (grade 3 to 4+ over ten rapids) which was awesome. We all took a couple of voluntary swims between rapids but where never kicked out the boat! Mike even took one small rapid feet first...

After lunch we got onto ATV's (or to the lay public, all terrain vehicles) for a jungle ride. Unfortunately Kirsty was initially given a far to big a bike and struggled to control it. She eventually swapped for a smaller one and found her wheels properly. Rafting was still the ultimate winner. We finished our Chiang Mai exprience in a surreal fashion eating delicious Italian food surrounded by Thai's.

Our trip to Huay Xai was unbelievably frustrating as we were driven by an indecisive driver who either didn't realise that you could keep your foot on the accelerator and maintain a given pace, or was told that a car would free-wheel happily at 90 and couldn't quite understand why it kept slowing down! Either way, after 5 hours of this most people in the car were still lurching when we got out the car - trying to find their landlegs. At least we were in air conditioned sardine can comfort for a change and the Thai drivers are practically Swiss after the Nepali's!