Chiang Mai, Post #1: Wats and Wats and More Wats

Chiang Mai is fantastic. If you come to Thailand and spend all your time in Bangkok and in the South without coming north to either Chiang Mai or Isaan (the rural northeastern portion of the country I call home) then you really haven’t seen much of Thailand. But there isn’t much to do or see in Isaan if you’re only visiting for a week, so you should probably go to Chiang Mai instead.

It’s got a sort of San Francisco feel to it. It’s full of vegetarian cafes and smoothie shops and aging hippies, both Thai and Western. Aside from my “hometown” of Sakon Nakhon, it’s the place where I’d like to spend the most time in Thailand. It’s very laid back and calm and sliced apart by alleys with lots of little shops and studios to discover. We had a blast there. Here’s a photo of Anne getting cozy in the tiny front seat of a tuk tuk to prove it.

How cute is she? Love this girl.

We had sort of an interesting introduction to the place, though: we arrived from Phuket at nearly midnight and found Julie Guest House, which had been recommended to us by multiple travelers and by my guidebook. We were shown our rooms by a 90-pound security guard with a lazy eye who looked about 17, but we were reassured by his very official-looking reflective vest.  Our rooms boasted plywood walls, metal cots with linens of dubious cleanliness, a single bare bulb, and a U-lock on the door. Lovely. 

I was immediately skeeved out, but it was late, and figured that one night wouldn't kill me. Probably.

While I went to the filthy shared bathroom to wash my face, dear Leah found some kind of potentially parasitic insect proliferating on her pillow, and asked us hesitantly if maybe we could go elsewhere. I was only too happy, but it was nearly two in the morning, so we called all the hotels within walking distance and selected the one that answered the phone. We packed up, gave the security guard a few dollars to not stay there, and set off into the quiet Chiang Mai night with our massive suitcases rumbling behind us on the pavement (we were transporting all our belongings for the next six months, remember). When we finally found the Parasol Inn we were sweat-soaked and exhausted, and it was way out of our price range (1,000 baht a night, or $30 American) but it was clean and air-conditioned and looked like a palace. We showered and fell into bed and stayed there the next night too, recovering from the trauma, until we found another place that was much less lovely and didn’t have complimentary breakfast but was much cheaper.

Anyway! Enough exposition! Let’s see some photos.

We spent most of our time in the old city, which is the most charming area. It lies within ancient walls:

 And moats:

Pretty sweet, right? They were built to protect the city from the Burmese when King Mengrai founded the city and made it the new capital of the Lanna Kingdom in 1296 (thanks, Wikipedia!).

So the place is really old, and chock full o' wats. There’s almost one on every block , so wandering around we stumbled over them constantly. We found this one, Wat Lam Chang, behind our hostel...

The Modern Building

by following the sounds of a music lesson conducted by a young monk:

And I got sort of fixated on the ruins of the original stupa, while my friends waited patiently for me to quit taking photos of a pile of rocks:

This wat just down the street from the Parasol Inn was mostly wooden, which I almost find more lovely than the ones that are fully gilded:

And to enter you went through a tiny doorway in a wall set right against the sidewalk:

And another:

And another:

Outside that last one we met a young student from the local university, who had planted himself there to practice his English with the visiting Westerners (yes, really. I think it was even a Friday night). He told us that we needed to visit Wat Prathat Doi Suthep, which is a wat at the top of a mountain (the Thais just love putting their wats on mountains) 15 km outside the city. 

So that’s where we went the next day! Luckily you drive most of the way up the mountain and then the stairs are, you know, actual stairs:

Directly at the top of those stairs we found a very well-fed, contented, and one has to assume centered, yellow lab:

He looks sad, but really he's just contemplating the nature of suffering. 

And the view overlooking the city is pretty sick:

It's a bit hazy, though. Apparently Chiang Mai has a real problem with air pollution; as the city is set in a sort of geological bowl bordered with mountains, the smog gets trapped. It's a bit like Los Angeles except there's no ocean and the pollution is more smoke from forest fires among the Thai-Myanmar border than car exhaust. 

Back to the wat! There were little girls dancing in hill-tribe outfits

and older girls dancing in courtly outfits

accompanied by boys on instruments

which they probably do over and over all day, ad nauseum.

The wat is (shocker!) incredibly ornate

I don't know who this guy is, but he is rocking those contrasting patterns. 

And full of gorgeous Buddha images

Thai Buddhism isn’t straightforward; it incorporates animism and other Eastern religions:

And whatever this is. 

Mom! I missed you! You look...different...

Next: I pay actual money to climb yet another mountain and sleep in a bamboo hut in the jungle.