At the evening of 28.11. I arrived in Chiang Mai. I enjoyed some shopping at the great nightmarket before I went to sleep.
The next day I visited the city starting at Wat Jet Yot, further to the clock tower and seeing the morning market which was not really worth it. After the morning market I saw a parade on the streets. Looked like Students from University made up a big parade with mixed topics. One was the traditional Lanna culture. Other were worn-out topics like global warming, aids, drugs, etc.
After watching the parade I continued my way to Wat Phar Kaew, which houses some fine Buddhist sayings: "The most miserable act in ones life is jealousy", "One can maintain peace of mind is happy", "The most of suffer will build a stronger you". Unluckily most sayings were not translated... While pondering about the sayings on my way down I was suddenly shocked to the heart as a next to my foot a 1m long green snake rises and goes "ssssss!"... just before my heart stopped beating it turned around and made it way down the stairs where it came from, and I followed it slowly :P
After that shock I made my way to Wat Phra Singh and Wat Klang Wiang.
Then I checked out and caught a bus towards
Wat Rong Khun - the white temple. And wow... it is by now the most beautiful and bizarre temple I have seen. In sparkling white it can shock you with some bizarre sculptures of hell. But most stunning were the paintings inside the temple: 11.09.2001 in the fangs of oil industry, more scenes of terrorism, sex trading and that mixed with spiderman, neo, batman, superman, transformers, star wars, saw and many more. Unluckily not allowed to take photos inside :(
After seeing the temple and the nearby galleries I flagged down the next bus and wanted to go to Chiang Mai... but unluckily the first bus just went until Mae Khachan, where I jumped on the real bus towards Chiang Mai^^
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Clock tower |
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Parade |
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Wat Phra Kaew |
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Wat Klang Wiang |
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Wat Rong Khun - the white temple |