Expat Breakfast and Wat Phra

Expat Breakfast

We Uber’d over to the River Side Restaurant to attend the Expat Breakfast meeting.

We sat with David and Rae and several other expats. David and Rae had arrived in Chiang Mai a few weeks earlier and had secured a 3-bedroom 2 bath apartment just south of the Old City.  for about 4,000 baht weekly (about $113) They have a year lease.

Later we sat with Richard and Janet from Brisbane, Australia.  They too are completing a month long visit to Chiang Mai. They had a most interesting story of suffering a near-death shipwreck on their 52 foot yacht/home as well as a terrible motor bike accident in Bali.  Egad!

Wat Phra That Doi Suthep

We made arrangements to visit Wat Phra That Doi Suthep up in the mountains with Richard and Janet. They made the transportation arrangements in a songtaew.

We made our way up the winding road to the temple. Wat Phra is sometimes just called Doi Suthep, which means “the mountain on which the temple is located.”

As our sontaew spewed fumes from the added fuel pumped into the carburetor to inch this red taxi upward, bicycle riders slowly churned their way up the hill. 

As the burning season unfolds, we become more aware of the poor air quality here.  We have, for example, eschewed the idea of taking a biking tour of the city due in part to air quality issues.

After paying the 30 baht each to enter the temple, we talked around with hundreds of other tourists (many Chinese) to take in the sights of hundreds of Buddha statues and bells.  

Green Buddha

Jay and Helen

We were surprised to see, for the first time, translucent green Buddhas. Since they were out in the open, we assumed they were made of glass rather than more precious material. There was a life-size statue of the king who ordered that the temple be built, and a tall, gold-covered chedi, as well as many other gold-colored objects.

There was a large balcony-style overlook where we could look down on the city of Chiang Mai. It was surprising to see how big the city was, and how much of the city surrounds the airport. We saw a couple of planes land and take off.

Chiang Mai Smog Seen from Wat Phra
Click to Enlarge

Over the entire panoramic vista was an unending cover of smoke, which was disconcerting. The Thai government is trying to get farmers to stop burning the dead plant matter left over from last year’s crops (mostly rice and corn), but old traditions/ habits die hard.

The four of us stopped and rested and chatted at 5:30 and talked about staying to see the sunset, but that was still an hour away. We opted to go back down the 300 dragon-lined steps and summon our songtaek driver to head back to the city.