there’s an ancient wall and defensive mote that encloses old chiang mai in a square. the wall was built (i think) by 1800. there’s one gate each for all the sides except the south, which has two gates. each side of the wall is about 1.5 km (just under a mile) long. our apartment is in the north-eastern corner.
here’s the wall shrine located at the north-western corner:
this is a buddhist temple in chiang mai. it was partially destroyed by an earthquake in 1545. it’s freakin’ HUGE! the temple shares it’s grounds with a couple of other temples: wat ho tham and wat sukmin. the city pillar was moved to the temple grounds around 1800 by king chao kawila. the king also planted a dipterocarp tree there to help the pillar protect the city.
when you first walk through the gates, there’s a huge, ornate viharn (a place that houses the principle buddha) right in front. here’s the dragon decorations that are on either side of the steps that lead into the viharn:
we walked around the side. there’s a lady walking towards the camera, you can use her as a point of reference to see how huge just the viharn is! you can also easily see wat chedi luang in the background:
another picture of the side of the viharn and a back view (there’s me sitting on the stairs!):
here’s a detail shot of the gold work on the roof of the viharn:
chedi luang itself, with some monks walking by for a size reference:
buddha statue in chedi luang:
dragons guarding the chedi luang stairs:
here’s the huge dipterocarp tree (you can see shaun walking across the bottom of the picture):
here’s some dragons at the entrance to a small temple or shrine on the chedi luang temple grounds:
shaun walking around a game table on the temple grounds:
the brick under the game table had lots of writing on it, i’m not sure what it’s for or what it means:
here’s the different buddhas that were in this one covered area (i like the reclining one the best). they were gigantic:
we visited the chiang mai school of architecture… they’re inbetween exhibits right now, but we checked out the building anyway. it’s beautiful! built out of dark wood and very open.
afterwards we strolled around and found this bamboo driveway that leads up to this really swanky hotel (like $150USD/night i think?). it looked super nice, with a pebble-tiled pool and all these outdoor hallways.
we were walking back home when the schools let out, and there were all these packs of cute little thai kids in their uniforms roaming around:
got back home, and there’s this crazy swarm of dragonflies outside the balcony. tons! i only caught about 8 on camera, and they’re so small it’s hard to see. pretty cool, though:
we ate at this place called “the wall” today. it’s full of nice, heavy wooden tables, chairs, and benches. there’s a pool table where you can play free pool. it’s decently priced, with decent food – me and shaun ate for 250 baht (under $8USD), with a 25 baht tip (tipping isn’t really practiced in thailand, but in the more touristy places it’s considered ok). i got a sandwich and fries with water and thai iced tea, shaun got a curry dish with rice with some iced coffee. they were playing beatles and the who on the sound system, at a modest level.
it’s located really close to where we’re staying, on the same street as the u.n. irish pub (a really fantastic place with great, and pricier, food): ratwithi road, between ratchaphakinai road and moon muang road (the canal).
here’s shaun enjoying the view:
here’s me enjoying some damn good thai iced tea:
one of the bigger shrines… you can see the bottled water offerings and the offerings on the plates under the elephants:
this is some graffiti on the wall beside a paint shop. there doesn’t seem to be a whole ton of graffiti around, since there doesn’t look like there’s much wall space (most walls are wooden and ornately carved, pretty enough already without graffiti!), but once we start exploring the back sois (avenues) we’ll probably find more.
here’s shaun with the graffiti panda:
here’s me with some cute graffiti rain:
here’s some little gold graffiti guys on the door frame:
here’s our apartment! it’s in the khumsiphaya grand hotel, in the north-eastern corner of the old city (within the city walls). there’s tons of good eats and bars in this area!
the apartment itself is about $190USD/month (6500 baht/month) depending on how strong the dollar vs. the baht is at the moment. electricity is extra, not sure how much that’s going to be but the lady at the counter in the lobby said if we ran our aircon constantly it wouldn’t be more than 3000 baht.
it’s around 400 sq ft, which is the size of my old apartment in wilmington minus the hallway. it’s a studio apartment on the 3rd floor, with a king sized bed and awesome balcony that looks out onto the western mountain. there’s also a lockable drawer (big enough for our laptops) for valuables. behind me in this picture is the door to the hallway, the closet, and a large bench. there’s plenty of shelf and closet space. if we go up the flight of stairs from this floor, there’s roof access! it’s a great area, with tile floor and lots of plants and tables set out. there’s maid service on mondays and thursdays, which is when we get fresh linens and the trash taken out.
all in all, i’d say a pretty good deal!
there’s a lot of little shrines EVERYWHERE around here. it’s really cool! some of them can be pretty elaborate… there’s one at the central kad suan kaew mall that’s like a children’s playhouse it’s so huge! i’ll get a picture up next time i go out there. they’re really intricate, and have tiny little plates with tiny little glasses of water and drink and little portions of food set out on them as offerings, along with burning incense.
(the picture of the glittery green shrine is huge so you can see all the detail)
hooray!
this is the view from our balcony:
doi suthep
