social study

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The beauty of Doi Suthep temple

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The previous post in this series is here..

We had a long drive from the Land of Angels to go up the mountain overlooking Chiang Mai to reach the Doi Suthep temple.

The temple was built is 1385 and is just beautiful. Gilded gold decorations, elaborate nagas (there is a hairline difference between Aadhi seshan and a dragon and this area is where the crossover happened is my guess), Buddhas in every pose, paper lanterns, the most beautiful set of steps we have ever walked on.. watching faith upfront, a fast track to heaven (apparently if you climb up the stairs to go to the temple, you go to heaven.. we paid for the escalator cage), etc.

We rang the bells and made wishes, prayed in the shrine, got blessed by the monk and got yet another “saradu” tied on our hands, watched the city and the airport from the view point.. basically had an enjoyable afternoon that made the time with the elephants in the forests a 100km away earlier in the morning, a distant memory.

We bumped into friends at the head of the staircase! What were the odds.. Apparently pretty high when half of bay area friend circle goes to attend the same wedding in Thailand..

The photos and videos do NOT do justice to the beauty of this place.

We also stopped by briefly at Wat Pha Lat which is now a famous meditation center. It was closed for tourists as the monks cannot meditate with the tourists around. So had to be content with taking video outside. Then we stopped at Wat Si Soda at the base of the hill which is just beautiful. We did not get time to go up the staircase but the nagas and stairs were amazing.

Here are the few landscape mode photos..

and the video highlights reel where you can also see Wat Pha Lat from outside and Wat Si Soda..

After the Doi Suthep temple, we were back to the old Chiang Mai area to see some old temples that were built here even before Doi Suthep.. that in the next post..

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Meeting the Long Neck tribe people in Chiang Mai

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The previous post in this series is here..

Joy showed up in the morning to pick us up at 7AM sharp. We had received the breakfast and they gave what they could. San was covered. I was not. Luckily I still had some energy bars left for the day. We also wanted to stop by a pharmacy to get some throat lozenges. Joy helped San buy stuff. It was good we had a translator!

With a quick pharmacy stop, we were on our way to our first stop on a very packed day. Joy was surprised that we wanted to see all that in one day, but we promised him we will step up and we will be done before 6PM for sure. He simply smiled. As we drove out of the busy area of Chiang Mai, he showed us the old houses in the area made of Teak wood on one street where the trees were also old and lined the street on both sides. It was going to be an almost 100km drive. Gave us some rest. We saw an airplane that was converted to a restaurant on the way as well.

Our first stop was to visit the Long neck tribe who are originally from Burma but have been given refuge in Thailand. They can sell trinkets to tourists and have some land to cultivate crops for themselves, but are restricted to that area. The women have long necks and wear a heavy set of rings from the time they are children. Originally only women born on a full moon Wednesday had to wear it. Now all girls are wearing it here. Learning about their history and way of life was interesting. We took some photos with the women and children, bought some souvenirs and walked back to the car. The river that ran through their area was key to their survival and there were beautiful waterfalls right near the houses of the tribe.

A few more photos..

A video highlights reel..

The reason for visiting them first was that the next stop wasn’t going to be ready for us that early and they were on the way..

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Banteay Kdei Temple

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The previous post in this series is here..

After visiting the Tomb Raider Ta Prohm temple, we went to the Banteay Kdei temple.

When our driver mentioned we will go to “Bun Tea kadai” I thought in Tamil.. he was going to get us to a shop that sold bun and tea.. for breakfast.. the visions of fresh steaming pav and chai was floating in my head. When he stopped at the parking lot and declared we had arrived, only then it struck me. It was yet another temple and I had heard what I wanted to hear.

Our driver said it was a really large temple and we should walk from this gate all the way to the other gate. It was a long distance, no kidding! He would drive the car and pick us up from the other gate. No point in us walking all the way back. We liked the idea.

The temple kept going and going and going.. we counted at least 20 arches through which we walked past on one straight line. The lingas were gone. The buddhas beheaded. Yet again a reminder that we as a collective are idiots. When we finally saw the one active shrine with a new Buddha that people were praying to, we also said a prayer and walked out.

These temples must have been spectacular in their hey dey! How did a country with these riches become what it is today.. we can only wonder.

When we came out we asked our driver “next stop Angkor Wat?” . He said “No. We can see one more temple before we head to Angkor Wat temple”.. This is a different style.. so off we went..It was still pleasant and just before 9AM. We had been on the road since 4;30 but were holding up pretty good.. will pick up that temple in the next post..

Copyright © 2012, Sundar Narayanan. All rights reserved.