Wat You Say?

So, the UN Irish Pub, home of Chiang Mai's thoroughly awesome weekly pub quiz (where Pam and I go every Thursday), is closed until further notice.  Because they currently can't use their kitchen.  Because one of the storms earlier this week sent a TREE crashing through it.

In fairness, this is a pretty good excuse.


I drove down tonight, not realising the place was shut, and actually got to chat to another quiz regular I'd never properly met before, as we both stood morosely outside the pub on the phone to our respective friends. :)  And at any rate, the evening was far from a loss:  I decided to grab some dinner inside the moat (in the old city) before heading back home, and ran into ex-VSO volunteer S., who's now working for an NGO here.  So I ended up eating with him and some Canadian and Burmese friends of his at a really good, very spicy hole-in-the-wall Indian restaurant (with amazing chai, which the Burmese folks tend to love, as well, thanks to the Indian influence on their cuisine).  Unexpected dinner party is unexpected!  But I like that about Chiang Mai:  it's of a size where you can occasionally run into people you know, but you can also disappear off by yourself if you need to.


And now, on a totally different (although still rainy-season-related) note, I'm going to (hopefully) share some photos that I've been trying to post for the better part of a week.  These are pictures of a sane wat, which should be a nice break after the wat full of crazy I encountered in southern Thailand. :)


Now that it’s not really hot season anymore, I’m trying to do a little more tourism around Chiang Mai – there’s so much I still haven’t seen.  And to be honest, the folks from my in-country training are showing me up just a bit.  Bpogey posts photos of himself in front of about three national landmarks every weekend. :)


Last Monday, since the office was closed for Coronation Day, I drove out to Wat Ched Yod, a fifteenth-century temple by the side of the superhighway.  (It’s actually next to the National Museum, which I explored back in November, but I never went to have a proper look around the wat itself.)

Driving during rainy season is nerve-wracking and annoying (you need to carry a poncho for yourself and a garbage bag to wrap up anything important in your bag, like books or electronics), but it's also stunningly beautiful - and unnerving - at times.  Beautiful because, for the first time since I've been here, the air (between storms) is really, really clear - clear enough to make out individual trees on the mountains that surround Chiang Mai, which used to be big lumps of blue haze on the horizon.  These days, the tops of the mountains are covered in this thick froth of rainclouds pretty much all the time, but below that, you can see every detail, including the spires of the famous golden temple on Doi Suthep (Suthep Mountain).  Unnerving because, whenever I'm travelling towards Doi Suthep, I always think that I must have missed my turnoff, because it feels like I'm waaaaay closer to the mountain than I'm supposed to be. :)


 
Wat Ched Yod is set back from the highway, in the midst of a lush, slightly wild garden.

Fifteenth-century temple building on the left, newer one on the right, small shrine in the background.

Detailed shots of the old temple.  Inside, there's a large golden Buddha, as well as a row of what look like old arcade machines, each containing a small Buddha in an orange robe.  Each is in a distinctive pose representing a day of the week.  Drop a coin in the machine corresponding to the day you were born, and a scratchy, antique-sounding recording of a sacred chant plays - a prayer on your behalf.  It's pretty eerie.  More so because the recording is so old; it’s strange to think about the monk (I’m assuming) who recorded it in the first place.  Is he even still alive?  How bizarre would it be to have the voice of a dead man praying for you?

If you'd rather take a more active role in your own prayers, there are bells and cymbals for petitioners to strike as part of their circuit of the temple:

Extremely shiny new building:

LOTS of smaller shrines:

Shrine of the headless Buddhas!  Not on purpose, I think - the statues have just been out there a while.

Shrine of the tiny inexplicable tiger statues!

Shrine of the didn't-get-to-it-because-it-started-raining!

Shrine of the being surrounded by water!

Shrine of the looks-like-a-ship's-wheel-but-probably-isn't!

Shrine of the tiny Ganesh!  (It's the gold statue between his ankles.)

Shrine of the... um... well, if you have any luck figuring this one out, let me know.

Not for the first time, I wish I knew more about Buddhist iconography.  These white branches are covered in Thai writing - and on the other side of the tree, one of them was placed in a stand with some markers next to it, so that visitors could add their own... names?  Prayers?  I have some more research to do...

"Bob?  Bob, we're trying to take a serious picture here.  Get that thing off your head.  I swear, every time he does this."

Also there were chickens.

At this point, the rain was starting in earnest, so I making my way back to the parking lot (sidling from shelter to shelter in between mad dashes through the rain :)), where I stood under the awning of a closed food shop for about fifteen minutes before admitting that the rain wasn't going to ease up.  (When I got back to my bike, I found that some kindly Thai shopowner had placed an open umbrella over it - awwww!)  And that was how I ended up riding my motorcycle in a proper rainstorm for the first time.

There are tricks to driving in the rain - tricks about speed and wind, and what gear to use, and getting the visor of your helmet tilted at juuuust the right angle (too open, and the rain lashes painfully right into your eyes; too far closed, and your breath fogs up your glasses).  I'm very grateful that I've had six months to get used to Arcee before even trying it.  But I made it home, soaking wet but triumphant. :)