This morning we slept in a little bit then headed over to a coffee shop that we discovered the last time we were in Chiang Mai. Stories does a very good job of both coffee and food, but today we only enjoyed a coffee here.
We then decided to spend some time exploring some of the 75 temples in the old city area of Chiang Mai. On our way to the first temple we wanted to check out, we discovered a store that sells pewter jewelry and art. The pieces are absolutely beautiful!
The first temple we saw was Wat Pan Tao, an ancient teakwood temple that is of Lanna styling. This temple has a lot of peacocks decorating the exterior and three Buddha’s inside. One thing that I noticed was different in this temple was a long row of several bowls. When someone makes merit they receive a bowl full of coins. They then choose which bowl to place the coins. Each of the bowls is for a different monk.
Wat Pan Tao sits right beside Wat Chedi Luang, which is a large gold colored Chedi. It is quite an impressive sight. One thing we noticed about this Chedi was that it is covered in sheet metal. Many of the artifacts that we see here are covered in small pieces of metal or glass.
Oldest temple in Chiang Mai?
From here we went to Wat Changtam which began being built in 1595 and took about 31 years to build. Someone told me that it is one of the oldest temples in Chiang Mai. There is a bronze Buddha in this temple and it is decorated with Lanna art including the art on the entrance doors. I quite liked the Nagas that ran up the entrance stairs. Behind this temple is a white Chedi, it appears to have the different Chinese zodiac animals around it’s base.
Next came Wat Muentoom. I thought that the most impressive part of this temple was the entrance gate which was recently rebuilt. The main Chedi is a white pagoda style with Lanna style lions guarding the base. There were lots of small displays around this temple.
The final temple that we visited was Wat Jedlin, a 16th century temple. This temple has some different features from others that we have visited. The interior has several Buddha statues including some emerald ones. There were several lifelike statues of monks both inside and on the grounds. I was impressed by the old grandfather clock.
There was an area to make merit that had a spinning led light behind a mound and a motorized skeleton that would Wai and repeat a message in Thai. I bought some fish food, spent some time feeding the giant catfish, and finished our visit by walking on the bamboo walkway over the pond.
Sai Ping riverside restaurant
We stopped for a mango smoothie on the way back to the room to get ready for supper. We met up with a friend of ours for supper at a local restaurant on the river called Sai Ping Bar & Restaurant. Our friend Kate is a local tour guide and we had an interesting conversation with her regarding what it took for her to become a certified tour guide. She also mentioned that she tried to go to the US but was denied a visa after a lengthy and expensive attempt. We hadn’t realized how difficult it is for some people to get visas to visit other countries. We are very fortunate as Canadians that we can simply enter many countries as a tourist with a visa on arrival.
After our rather large supper we opted to walk back to the room and stroll through a market that was being set up as we were on our for supper. Here we picked up some golden berries to add to yogurt and granola, and some sections of pomelo. We were surprised by the very large number of ladies doing nails in this market and I think every single one of them had a customer.
- Crystal
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