Wednesday 14th March – Chiang Mai’s Temples and Palace tour

Brace yourselves for  any picture of many temples... pretty impressive hey?

We had booked today’s tour with our hotel travel agent.  We were picked up just after 8am but spent quite some time stuck in the minibus collecting others and driving out of the city until we got to our first stop, the Bhubing Palace (Bhu meaning mountain and Bing was the old name for Chiang Mai), otherwise known as the Winter Palace.   

The Bhubing Rose

We were given an hour to explore on our own but we both needed a coffee first to wake us up after the long journey!  However, we then enjoyed a stroll around the stunning gardens of the palace even though it got very steep and hilly at times.  The Palace was built in 1961 For the Royal family to use when they are visiting Northern Thailand.  At 1373 Metres above sea level it allows a panoramic view of the City…. When the smog is not as bad as it is currently (below). 

 

We were not allowed entry into any of the buildings, the public are invited to enjoy the beautiful variety of flowers in bloom all over the grounds.

View of Chiang Mai?!

Some beautiful scenery in the Palace Grounds

That's a big tree (Simon for scale)

Waiting for the bus we noticed the name of the local Police Station (right).

Maybe they could work on their tourism 'patter'?!

We got picked up by our bus on schedule and were taken on a group tour of the ‘must-see’ temple of Chiang Mai, Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep Rajvoravihara.  Apparently, if you haven’t seen it, you haven’t been to Chiang Mai.  There are two methods of getting up the hillside to the temple – the steps or the cable car.  Our guide suggested we got the cable car up together and exited via the steps, which was a winner for us! Our guide showed us around and gave us some interesting facts about Buddhism on the way round.  For example, the Buddha represented in different positions denotes the different days of the week, and supposedly your character.  

It wasn't just one temple - the grounds were full of exquisite buildings, statues and sculptures

Also, I wasn’t aware that Buddhists are in a completely different year to us! It is currently 2561 in Thailand, so we are actually time-travelling in the future!  

There were numerous intricately decorated buildings around the main temple before it was time for the main event and that meant taking our shoes off to enter the temple itself. It was very busy, so we struggled to get good photographs without other people in them, but these are some of the best we managed. I even got blessed by a monk with holy water (below).   

Me getting blessed

The temples and surrounding ornaments were coated in gold

The monks here are woken up by chiming bells at 5am.  Once they’ve been good for three hours they are allowed breakfast at 8am.  They then have lunch at 11am and that is it for the day.  They must live on two meals a day with no dinner, only water.  And that’s without mentioning the other obvious things they must forgo, like female contact and alcohol! 

 

Life is hard for a monk...it's good to talk and anyone can pop by 'Monk chat' to open up

 

The staircase leading down away from the temple... I'm glad we used the lift to get in!

We remained at the temple until midday after which we were all transferred back into the city.  We had asked to be dropped off in the old town so that we could soak up some more culture before returning to our hotel.  The only issue was that my stomach is still not right.  

We stopped for as bland a lunch as possible, a panini, but this didn’t do me any good. The only positive thing I can mention was that I used the most technologically advanced toilet I have ever had the pleasure to in my life!  It was all electronic.  You could choose to heat the seat, whether you would like a spray or a bidet and what pressure you required for the service, before you could choose to be blow-dried! Top travel tip for Thailand – this level of amenity is incredibly rare.  Public toilets are often squat type toilets that aren’t the cleanest and even when you have to pay 5 baht for the privilege of using them, they will rarely have any toilet paper or soap.  So, ALWAYS carry some tissues and alcohol hand gel.  They’re a must.

We did continue to wander the Old City for another hour or so.  There are more than 300 Buddhist temples in Chiang Mai so there is no way you can see them all, but we were in an area with a high concentration, so we managed to check a few more off.  

 

 

Our faithful taxi

We took the opportunity of experiencing our first tuk-tuk ride in Thailand back to the hotel when we’d had enough.

Tuk's eye view

It was time to take some drugs and have a lie down to sort my stomach out.  I need to get this resolved before our diving trip tomorrow! As it was our last night in Chiang Mai we did make it out for dinner at the Hard Rock Café where there was a great band playing before exploring the extensive night markets.