Monk Chat

Today we visited two more temples. Chiang Mai has over 300 temples, or wats, within the city so we could theorhetically spend months doing this. We, however, are limiting ourselves to the major three or four. One of the temples was famous for being constructed of teak while the other for being one of the oldest wat in Chiang Mai. Most of the temples have been renovated relatively recently, but the excessive use of concrete and stucco along with an emphasis among the artisans to exactly mimic each other makes some of the temples a bit uninspiring. Wat Chedi Luang, however, actually looked like a six hundred year old brick building. Wat Chiang Man, the other we saw, is the oldest temple in the Chiang Mai, built in 1296 at the time of the city's founding. The temple served as the residence of Chiang Mai's founder, King Mengrai, for a time. The buildings are finely decorated in red lacquer, gold leaf and mosaics of tinted mirror, wonderful examples of Lanna style architecture.

We also went to Monk Chat at Wat Chedi Luang, a program for enabling tourists to interact with monks and allowing the monks to practise english. We spoke with a man who had been a monk for 12 years and taught english at a university. He spoke english fairly and we were able to ask him several questions and answer some of his. While monks lead a very regimented life - usually awake by four and eat only two meals that must be consumed before noon - they are not as sheltered as one might expect. They have access to email and television and most only practise for a year or less. Only a small minority stay in for their entire life. According to the monk we spoke with said that 80% of all Thai men are monks at some point in their life.

We also looked into The Royal Flora Ratchaphruek flower expo and plan on walking through the gardens tommorrow - over 7.2 km of trail through 8o hectres of land. Other than that it was a fairly laid back day. Watched the Austrailian Open men's final and are about to seek out some dinner.