Doi Suthep - this infamous temple is about a 30 minute ride out of Chiang Mai up on top of a large hill. This temple is the holiest temple in the Northern part of Thailand. It has a "miraculous legend" to it's founding that goes a bit like this. Long, long time ago, there was a king that wanted to enshrine holy artifacts, so this king put a mini shrine on the back of a white elephant. He wanted to see where this sacred animal would go to. After a lot of time, it climbed this hill, trumpeted three times, turned around three times, knelt down and died. The king took this as an indication that this was the spot.
In order to get up to the golden temple, you need to climb up 300 stairs. On the top of the hill, is a beautiful temple complex. The temple's Golden point (called a Chedi) was glittering bright in the sun. It's claimed that this part of the complex is one of the most harmonious pieces of temple architecture in all of Thailand.
From the back of the temple complex you could see a beautiful view of Chiang Mai since we were up high on a hill. It was a bit hazy for us but we could still see a bit through the haze. The tour guide provided us with a lot of helpful information about temples in general. Things that were useful to us, not only at this temple but just in general. For example, when viewing a temple, you should always walk around it with it to your right hand side. It should never be to the left of your body. And surprisingly, he informed us that Buddha did not originate in Thailand, nor even Asia. It's shocking since most Asian countries practice Buddhism. I can't remember exactly where he said it originates but I am pretty positive he said that it was Crete. After Doi Suthep, our tour guide brought us to have lunch at a local restaurant. He introduced to us my new favorite Thai dish called Khao Soy - which is a very spicy dish. I'll talk about that in my next blog. From there, we went to a handicraft part of the city. The first stop was a place that made homemade umbrellas. They make it right from scratch. The paper they use is made from a certain tree OR from elephant poop. Elephant poop, isn't that funny?! They take their handmade paper with their handmade umbrella skeleton (made from bamboo) and glue it together or tie it together. Then someone hand paints it. This was my favorite handicraft spot we went to.
After the umbrella stop, we went to a silversmith. It was interesting watching how they make the form of the jewelry but this particular spot seemed more interested in trying to get us to purchase something as opposed to showing us the factory for a long time. Then we went to a silkloom spot. This one was really cool, too. I learned about where silk comes from. Now, I've always been aware that silk comes from silk worms; but I guess I never really understood what that meant. In the picture below, you can how the silk comes. Those white and yellow bulbs in that hot water pot are silk worm cocoons. This woman take a cocoon out, takes a bit of the string and then runs is through that circle like thing and that keeps the silk straight and prevents it from breaking. She keeps rolling it through that circle-like thing until it runs out of thread. When that happens, a dead silkworm falls out and back into the water. That part grossed me out. If you look to her left hand, you can see all the thread she has been getting from the cocoons. 
Then, there were actual women also working on the looms there. They use all 4 limbs to work these huge machines. Their legs are pushing on petals and their arms are moving things around above their head or in front of them. It truly appears as if they are doing a dance with the looms. I walked around quite a bit and just watched them intently doing this. These women are so skilled, I don't think there is any way I could figure out how to run one of these looms. It's so impressive!
We went back and had "The Last Supper" with 3 of our friends, Kyla, Andres and Emily who separated ways from us this evening. They headed down South to an island resort while Ruth and I remained in the North. That night we met up again with Tamo for some Muay Thai boxing! We got front ringside seats for this event.
Muay Thai has fans in Thailand to likes of how we have fans in America for American Football teams. Every province has a stadium and when it's shown on TV, it's like Superbowl Sunday at a sports bar every time. There's a strong spiritual and ritualistic way to Muay Thai adding more grace to an otherwise violent sport.
You soon get used to the ritual of the ring and boxers. Each boxer enters into the ring to the wailing music of a three piece orchestra called the phipat. The boxer first bows to the direction of where he was born and then to each 4 corners of the ring - which is actually North, South, East and West. He also has to honor his teachers and the spirit of the ring. Next, he performs a slow dance. In Muay Thai, and part of the body aside from the head can be used as an offensive weapon. All parts but the groin are allowed to be fair targets. Kicks to the head is the strategy that causes the most knock outs.
The first two boxers were young boys which I thought would bother me but it wasn't bad. The later into the night it got, the stronger the boxers became. It was such an eye treat staring at these men's incredible ripped bodies. We had an older Thai man sitting next to us so we started chatting with him a bit allowing for some fun interaction with the locals. To the right of us was a whole crowd of locals sticking their hands in the air placing bets to a bookie. Everytime a good hit was made, the crowd all screamed "oy!" as loud as they could. The atmosphere here was phenomenal. Everyone is so excited. The last 3-4 fights were soo good. The boxers were a lot stronger and vicious than the first few we had been seeing. I was really getting into it. The last round of the night was a joke. In comes two men. One - a Thai guy with a fat belly. The other a tall, lanky white guy with "White trash" tattooed down his chest. They fought for 3 rounds before they ended it. We're not really sure why he was up there, but we figured that he woke up the next day with a killer headache trying to remember what he did the night before because he was so drunk. Then, it came back to him. And now he will have a story to tell his friends in the future...."This one time, in Thailand..I got really drunk and ended up in a Thai boxing ring." It was really good fun and ended at 1am. Ruth and I went back to our hotel and Tamo back to hers. Muay Thai was by far one of my favorite things I had done in Thailand. That's a thing to do if you ever come to Thailand
1 comment:
Hangovers do suck
Dad , PS looks like you recovered
fast , You dont look sick in the pics
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