The next stage of our
honeymoon adventure was flying up North to Chiang Mai. This city was much
more our style. Only 200,000 people in the city and so much more quiet
and peaceful while still fulfilling our desire to see and explore yet a
different aspect of Thai culture. This region is actually largely influenced by
Burmese, Laos and Chinese cultures thus the food, while delicious, was
distinctly different than what we found in Bangkok. We arrived late at
night after a 3+ hour delay in our flight so we pretty much went straight to
bed and started off in the morning relatively fresh.
The view from our hotel:
Couldn't resist:
The old city was still surrounded by ruins of the walls that once protected it:
Wat Chedi Luang: This ancient Buddhist Temple began construction in the 1300’s under King Saen Muang Ma to bury his father though it wasn’t finished until the mid 1400’s under King Tilokaraj. At this time, Chiang Mai was part of the Lanna Kingdom (a rival of the Ayutthaya Kindgom) and the temple was the largest building in all of Lanna standing at 270 feet tall and a base diameter of 177 feet. The decay of the temple as you see in the pictures was due, in part, to an earthquake in 1545.
Wat Phra Singh:
Construction dates back to 1345 under King Phayu, again to bury the ashes of
his father and former King though it suffered abandonment between 1578 and 1774
when the Lanna kingdom was under Burmese control.
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Very wise...
Wat Chiang Man: The
Elephant temple as I came to call this temple was one of my favorites and one
of the oldest buildings in the kingdom beginning construction in 1297.
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