We are in Chiang Mai, which is a pretty big tourist town. Our first stops were a couple conveniently located big famous wats, that honestly look a lot like all the other wats we've seen. Though they had some nice dragons at the entrance, and one of them had a replica of the emerald Buddha we saw in Bangkok, this one that we could get close to and photograph.
Next we dropped in at the Chiang Mai Arts and Culture Center, which is supposed to be a really good museum, won awards and all that. However, we were really disappointed. It seemed like most of the captions were really hard to read for lack of light, glare, or such, if they existed at all. And as a museum with few artifacts and grainy photographs, captions seemed important. Ugh.
After that, we were feeling pretty jaded and Mary was feeling kind of under the weather, so we wandered around a bit more then sat and watched the children feeding pigeons in a park while we waited for it to be late enough for the Saturday Walking Street to get underway. The Saturday (and Sunday) Walking Streets are once-per-week extra big night markets, and they close down the street to cars for it.
On the way we happened by this totally amazing wat, which appeared to be made of silver. Upon a little investigation, we discovered that this wat is still under construction and we got to see a bunch of monks pounding away on aluminum sheets for it. Aside from the big sign out front saying that women aren't allowed inside (it's an ordination hall), it was really awesome. And I am once again disappointed in Lonely Planet Thailand for leading us so poorly. Why is it directing us to wats that look the same as all the others we've already seen when there's cool stuff like this to see, that doesn't even get mentioned?
The walking street was pretty nice. It was a little unreal when the national anthem came on right at 6pm and suddenly everyone was frozen in place as if someone had stopped time. Seriously, it was just like that. We stopped too, as soon as we figured it out. We'd been told ahead of time that they would play the national anthem and we would be expected to stand still for it, but I totally didn't understand what that meant until it happened.
At one point a white guy with a European-sounding accent walked up to us and asked us if we spoke English. We confirmed that we did, and he immediately asked us if we were interested in doing some Buddhist meditation. We said no, because we aren't. And he asked us if we wanted to see some stuff off the beaten track. We said no again and moved on quickly. The guy was obviously selling something. It was weird. But the guidebook did mention that there are con artists who come to Thailand from the West to rip off tourists, and warns against trusting anyone just because they are white or speak with an accent like home. Trust me, being so far from home, it gets tempting. Though not as much here as in India.
We also, after stuffing ourselves on some mediocre food, found the most delicious-smelling waffles, and for only 20 bhat. Anything like an American breakfast in a restaurant runs you like 4x that at least. So we split one--chocolate with cashews--even though we were both full. Mmmm good...
By this point Mary was completely beat and went back to the hotel and found herself too tired to even go out for a Thai massage, instead putzing around on the unlimited free wifi at the hotel. Meanwhile Josh explored the night market and browsed camera lenses and netbooks. And picked out some earrings to give to Mary for their "4 and 3/4s" anniversary.
After Josh got back, we went out for a late night snack, and ended up having a long chat with some other Americans who were arguing amongst themselves about whether or not firms should want to avoid hiring women because they might have babies. Which then turned into 20 questions when they found out we'd just spent 5 weeks in India. While we are hesitant to have dealings with folks like the white guy we met at the Night Market, it’s become a great joy to have a conversation with native English speakers. Life's little pleasures.
After we finally went to bed, Mary was up half the night continuing to feel generally lousy (though not specifically lousy in any one area). Ugh. This resulted in a late start the next morning, and by the time we went down stairs at 11am, we were told that actually we couldn't keep our room another night because it was reserved. And the hotel was completely booked, but they did offer to store our bags for us. So we packed up and headed out, by this point feeling pretty negative and miserable. Well, at least Mary was feeling that way. After some food we decided to screw the budget and see if we could get in on the Flight of the Gibbon tour in the afternoon. Answer: yes. Be ready in 5 minutes.
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