Thailand Vacation, Part III-Wats

The city of Chiang Mai and the entire area around it hold many beautiful Buddhist temples. Some are small and simple, but many are large and very ornate. We visited several of them.

This first one was the Wat Prathat Doi Suthep. This is the largest and most famous temple in the area. It's very old and very large and it's the destination for many pilgrimages from all around Thailand. The day we were there was very sunny, and the sun shining on the polished bronze of the pagoda was nearly blinding. There were many people there, pilgrims and tourists, about 50/50. If you look closely at my picture on top, you'll see I'm barefoot. You had to take off your shoes to visit the inside of the temple complex. This temple is set high on a hill above the city and there is a great view from the temple grounds. This temple is about 20 km outside of the city proper, and the area is quite rural with jungle forest until you get to the temple area itself.

There were so many things to see in this temple. Luckily, our guide was very good. He was a devout Buddhist and very knowledgeable both about the temples and local history, and he was a very proud resident of Chiang Mai. For example, in the picture of the large Buddha statue, there are several smaller statues. One is made of pure jade, not very large but very beautiful.

In the city itself we saw several temples. My favorite was a very old temple, now partly destroyed by an earthquake many years ago. The central government has allocated a fund to restore the building, and that work is underway. The temple itself stands--or stood when it was whole--90 meters tall. When built it was the tallest building around and could be seen from far away, especially when whitewashed and gleaming in the sun. Each king tried to build a temple bigger than the kings that preceded him, and this particular one set a high standard. The temple appears to be carried on the backs of many elephants and many of the elephants survive. There is a bronze Buddha about halfway up the side of building. I tried to imagine how it looked hundreds of years ago--it was built in the 14th Century--it must have been very impressive indeed.

The temples are generally guarded at the entry by some kind of mythical animal. Most of these were guarded by dragons. The style of the dragons changed over time, becoming more and more ornate. The more recent temples have very highly decorated dragons and that is the Bangkok style. That last set of dragons flank a staircase of 300 steps that lead up to Wat Prathat Doi Suthep. We took a tram to the top, but we walked back down.