So off on an overnight train to Chiang Mai. This is a very old city that was only really accessible to the rest of the world from the 1920's onwards. The core of the city is the old city - a one mile square area, surrounded by a moat, with walls and gates adding to the original security of the city. Adding in the advent of motorised traffic has meant that one direction of traffic runs on the road just inside the moat, while the other direction runs on the road just outside the moat. Tie in the fact that there is only at most one bridge across the moat on each side of the square, and you have the start of a difficult puzzle in order to get about the city. The outside of the old city seems to have its streets modelled on the Fishbone cause and effect diagrams, which does not help with learning where to go to get to where you want to. Finally the system to convey the public around is unique to the city. There are tuk-tuks, but the majority of bulk traffic is conducted in pick up trucks equipped with a long bench one each side. These act as communal taxis and buses, but do not run to fixed routes, or even regular routes. They need to be flagged down in the street, at which point the destination and the fare is negotiated. This may involve agreement as to the route, but depends on additional people filling up the vehicle, so can involve substantial waits while the vehicle fills up.
All in all a complicated travel system, and one I never really got a handle on during my time in Chiang Mai. As a consequence, I did much of my tourism here on foot, and within the radius of foot travel.
One of the places I did visit was a Wat Lok Molee, Amphoe Muang. This is very close to the old city moat, and hence the tourist area. It was a royal temple of great importance for one of the Thai dynasties. It is still maintained, with a population of monks, and some small numbers of locals attending and offering sacrifices there. However, it is very quiet and over the two and a half hours I was there, there were possibly as many as a dozen other people there. One of the really nice things about this Wat was the information board which started off almost apologetically "An old and significant site, there is no record of the temple's founding date, but its name first appeared in historical texts in 1367".
By contrast, visiting the main Wat outside Chiang Mai, which is on a mountain completely surrounded by forest, I was astounded by the noise, rather than the quiet. This was due to both the cicadas (at least two varieties, judging from the sounds) and another insect. Though I did not get to see one of these other insects, I was told that they are very small. They make up for this by the volume of their call - they sounded like jet engines spooling up ready for takeoff.
All in all a complicated travel system, and one I never really got a handle on during my time in Chiang Mai. As a consequence, I did much of my tourism here on foot, and within the radius of foot travel.
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| A real prayer tree, Wat Lok Molee. Each leaf, gold coloured, has a prayer inscribed on it. |
By contrast, visiting the main Wat outside Chiang Mai, which is on a mountain completely surrounded by forest, I was astounded by the noise, rather than the quiet. This was due to both the cicadas (at least two varieties, judging from the sounds) and another insect. Though I did not get to see one of these other insects, I was told that they are very small. They make up for this by the volume of their call - they sounded like jet engines spooling up ready for takeoff.
