Thailand Trip Post 4

January 1, 2015

              I woke up aching all over. The jarring elephant ride combined with walking all over the night before led to sore leg, back, and arm muscles. We had breakfast at Coffee Lovers, egg, ham, and cucumber sandwiches and Thai milk tea, which is the most delicious drink ever! Then we found a place Victoria`s guidebook recommended for massages: the Blind Conservation School. It felt good and helped a bit with the soreness.

After, we went to the Inthakhin Wat and Museum. The museum definitely needed some repairs, but it did have short English explanations of some of the pictures and artifacts. Then we headed across the street to the City and Culture Museum, which was also full of English explanations. We learned about the kingdom of Lanna and how they became part of Thailand. Basically, Lanna was attacked on multiple sides by Laos and Burma, so they agreed to recognize the Thai kings in return for support. Lanna royalty still held high positions and were mostly left alone by the Thai government.

Inside Wat Inthakhin

It had pretty roof decorations.

We took our afternoon break at Wawee Coffee, which had been recommended to Victoria for having really good coffee. However, we both stuck to milk tea. I had a piece of white chocolate cake, while Victoria had a slice of coconut pie. Then we explored some more temples.

The murals inside Wat Phabong told stories of the Buddha.

Giant lion stature, because why not?

Wat Huakhwang

Wat Huakhwang

I'd seen these in a couple other temples, but Wat Chieng Mun had an explanation in English. There is a different Buddha for each day of the week and donating to the one for the day you were born on will bring you good fortune. It reminded me of that poem, "Monday's child is full of grace...."

The Elephant Chedi at Wat Chieng Mun.

The top of the Elephant Chedi

Wat Lam Chang

              We had an early dinner at another guesthouse. I had yellow noodles in curry soup and Victoria ha Burmese pork. The curries here are deceptive. At first it was sweet and not very spicy, but it left a trail of burning down my throat. After, we went to the north of the city to see some of the oldest temples. There were lots of small, winding lanes to navigate through. We met a nice older woman, traveling alone and combined our maps and direction skills to figure out how to get to a couple of temples.

              There was a lot of walking and I was very tired! We ended up back near the Tha Phae Gate and the market from the night before was still going on, though not as crowded. We ate nachos and drank pina coladas at a place called Loco Elvis. Their background music was straight from the early nineties; it was fabulous.

              Once we felt up to it, we walked to the Night Bazaar, a nightly street market in the southeast side of town. It wasn`t much different from the market held in the Square on New Year`s Eve. We were both tired, sore, and grumpy at this point and bickered a bit, before finally heading back. We confirmed our early morning taxi pick up with our guesthouse manager, packed up, showered, and slept.

I saw this sign on the way to the Night Bazaar and had to stop and take a picture to send to Grandma Beth. Go Buckeyes!

We saw this car during our walk, and at first we thought, "Oh. Okay. A Mao car. Sure, why not?"

But then on the other side, it says THE REVOLUTIONISTS and has pictures of Gandhi and Che Guevara. Those are some diverse people and politics to throw together on one small car.