Chiang Mai's Temples and Monks

Day 3 Bangkok to Chiang Mai 03/05/10

Up early after some beers and watching the football with a cool English dude called Allen, we were the same age so we talked about England and how bad it is now.

Hung around for a while then off to the airport, Bangkok airlines are great they gave us a feed in the lounge and free Wifi.

The flight was great, you could see the landscape changing from farming plots like a patchwork quilt covering the entire land to slowly mountains and streams into forest and mountains.

Chiang Mai is a way bigger city then what I was expecting, but then wasn’t really sure what to expect….
Caught a cab straight to Julies Guesthouse, It’s very “backpacker” lots of young people all coming and going with the owner and staff friendly and helpful, I guess it’s still work to them but the place seems to be a gold mine so why not be friendly.

Most seem a lot younger than me but I’m use to that, the beers are cheap $1 and they have an honesty system…go figure, I wonder what it’s like once everyone has had a few, I guess I’ll see.

As soon as I got my room and dropped my gear I got out with the camera and started shooting, it’s pretty easy to navigate around the old town and the Map they provided was invaluable.

The temples are awesome and numerous every street and back ally you walk down there’s another one, there religious devotion and devotion to the past must run deep.

I’ve also seen a number of monks and strangely they just seem like normal people, there ages range from really old to very young like 10 years old, I defiantly want to find out more about what it takes and means to devote yourself to being a monk????

A Buddha statue inside a local temple, each position or stance represents something different to the Buddhists

Lilly in a pond.

A statue offering at a temple dedicated to Elephants

I found this little guy perched on the end of an elephants tusk from on of the many elephant statues

Elephant Temple.

Another Buddha in repose.

A statue at a Chiang Mai temple with an onlooker.

One of many figurine's lining the temple walls all carved from stone.

Boys can become monks as young as Ten, I found this little fellow playing among the temple Statues.

Monks come out in the morning and chant prayers for the locals in exchange for alms.

Sunrise over the temples.

Monks from a local temple out collecting alms from the towns people for there meals.