Chiang Mai Thailand

We stayed at Chiang Mai for a week. The guesthouse we stayed at was very comfortable and we had a room with a nice view of trees and lots of bird life. Breakfast was great too. We enjoyed the airport Central Plaza, mainly for it's lovely airconditioning which was a welcome relief from the heat but also for it's food. Restaurants were plentiful and we even succumbed to a MacDonalds burger, chips and coke just once. No desire to repeat that again though.

Photo taken at a temple just near our Guesthouse.

We went to a Cultural Show with dinner provided. This shows our meal for 2. They kept refilling the bowls and there was just too much food.

We visited the Doi Suthep temple which is part of the Suthep National Park. It is perched on the mountainside of Doi Pui, Thailand's 8th highest mountain which is situated right next to the city. We took a songtaew up the picturesque winding road to the temple and passed many waterfalls on the way. A songtaew is a pickup truck with a covered back and 2 bench seats. A very economical way to travel around the city full of both tourists and locals. These photos show the 300 stairs you have to walk up to get to the temple and Robert ringing the bells for good luck. A most auspicious thing to do. We even walked around the stupa clockwise with the locals - again for good luck.

The gold chedi (temple) which the locals walk around clockwise 3 times holding flowers and incense and sometimes candles. This is called 'making merit' and is for good luck.

The old town of Chiang Mai is surrounded by 4 walls forming a square with gates on each side. A moat surrounds the wall and there is many paved areas around the walls. This section was populated with thousands of pigeons who were unperturbed by people walking through them. This photo captures a monk walking by. The city is full of temples, or should we say 'wats' are just everywhere. Our joke while in Thailand was 'what wat is that'. Pretty sad hey..

The photos below show the wall and the gate where we entered from our hotel and the corner of the wall with the moat surrounding it.

We arrived in Chiang Mai on a very important day and holiday for Buddhists. We were told of a ceremony where 14 young men were to be made monks and were told everyone was welcome to attend. Here is a photo of the service and we got to sit on the cement floor with everyone else. The amazing thing was that they provided us with a brochure in english with details of the ceremony. This was so unexpected and felt very welcoming.

We caught a VIP bus from Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai and this time it really was VIP. It was called a Green Bus and it was similar to catching a plane. They passed out food and water. The passenger seating area was a separated compartment from the front of the bus and there were no pick ups along the way. We even had the hostess doing the announcement which unfortunately was in Thai and we didn't understand a word. We were waiting for her to get out the lifejacket and go into the emergency landing speil but no, it didn't get to that.