Liz and Chris Take a Trip

Our first real stop on the trip is for a little over a week in the unofficial capital of Northern Thailand, Chiang Mai. It was founded in 1296, and was called Chiang Mai (New City) as it became the new capital of the Lanna Kingdom.

The biggest draws for us on Chiang Mai as a destination were the rich history and food. Chiang Mai became a part of Siam in 1775 by agreement after King Taksin helped drive out the Burmese and was promptly abandoned for 15 years (1776-1791) due to counterattacks by the Burmese.

For our time in the city Liz and I found ourselves in a great place called RCN Inn. We stayed our first couple of nights at a little guesthouse called Ben Guest House. It was quite nice but the high temps, lack of AC and distance from city center convinced us that a move was in order. We packed our backpacks, and took to the streets for a 2 mile hike in 100F to our new location. RCN has been great, super friendly staff, little shared kitchen and laundry room downstairs, air conditioning, nice bathrooms and decent wifi. We’re across the street from a temple and have a view (mildly blocked by the AC unit) of the stupa from our window.

We’ve spent a good portion of each day wandering the city and exploring food recommendations and visiting temples. On Thursday we rented a scooter and get out of the city for a little bit to check out the giant monk statue on the hill in Lamphun. The statue is one of many in the region commemorating the works of Kruba Sivichai. Before making it to that temple, we stopped by two other temples and a statue of Kruba Sivichai on the side of the road where a couple of nice older ladies insisted that we get blessings for a long and happy life together (that totally makes up for the black cats that kept crossing our paths earlier in the trip I think).

Aside from making a concerted effort to try every Khao Soi restaurant in Chiang Mai to find our favorite, we have spent most of the rest of our time visiting temples. Including the very prominent Wat Chedi Luang which stands in the center of the old city. Construction of the primary temple was started in the 14^th century and was only completed after the King’s death by his widow. The temple stood 82 meters at construction but a large portion was destroyed in an earthquake in 1545 (there are signs that also say some of that damage was due to cannon fire from King Taksin). The Wat has a very cool program where visitors to the temple can sit and converse with monks; it has the double benefit of assisting the monks in practicing speaking in other languages (mostly English) and also gives tourists a chance to ask questions about Thai culture, temple life, the activities of monks and other topics.

On Sunday Liz and I met up with my friend Simon and his girlfriend Aim who live in Chiang Mai. They treated us to a lovely brunch at the Four Seasons in honor of our wedding and the visit. The Four Seasons is lovely, the food was great and there were free-flowing cocktails. It was a great time catching up. That evening we caught Chiang Mai FC vs Bangkok FC at 700 Year Stadium (a stadium built to house the 1995 Southeast Asia Games and also commemorate the 700^th anniversary of the founding of the city. It was a fun game and the home team pulled off a hard fought victory with a late goal, so spirits were high heading out of the stadium.   We ran into the woman who runs the Inn we are staying at right before the game, she actually picked us out of the crowd from afar while we were heading to the gates to go into the stadium.

At this point, we are hoping to still get in a 1 day cooking course in the city and make make it up Doi Suthep. According to legend, a bone fragment from Buddha’ shoulder was on its way to the king when it split into two pieces. The smaller piece was enshrined at a temple in Suandok, the other was placed on the back of a white elephant that was released into the jungle. The elephant climbed Doi Suthep mountain, stopped, trumpted three times and then either stopped and refused to go any further or dropped dead (depending on the version of the story). This was taken as an auspicious omen and the temple was built here to enshrine the other bone fragment.

After Chiang Mai our plan is to head North to the older Lanna capital of Chiang Rai on Wednesday. We are about 2 weeks out for our 30 day visas for Thailand, I think the tentative plan is after a couple days exploring in Chiang Rai we’ll head to Laos, taking a 2 day boat ride down the Mekhong river to Luang Prabang. More on those plans as they become more solid or fall apart.

As always, hope everyone at home is doing great. A very happy mother’s day to all of the wonderful mom’s out there.

Chiang Mai