I think I have to show something else besides temples in Chang Mai. But it is not easy – we still get to them :-), on every step. But here how one of the main streets looked where the flower market is located on one evening supposed to be that street’s celebration evening (they have those celebrations or fairs on every bigger street in a sequence on every day of a week):
And here we come to the main point -bugs! It is commonly known that Thais eat bugs and they don’t deny it. But as a big walker as I am and as curious as I am -I saw a fried selection of bugs only twice: I could recognize grasshoppers, worms and cockroaches of different calibers…the travel book said you have to take off the wings of cockroaches before eating…As you can see – they are spiced with herbs, I bet they are tasty, but somehow – there were so many other things to eat…and also – I never saw anyone buying them.
Beside the Flower market, which is very crowded with counters with very scarce place for walkers to walk – there is the Ping river :
The shores don’t look anything but boring and full of trash, so you must be very bored and have no sensitivity in your nose to take a river boat trip…
And this canal is a disaster -but you have to see, for the full picture. It is in the middle of downtown and you have to clip your nostrils while passing one of the numerous bridges, decorated with lions of elephants on both sides of the canal:
But in between there are very modern buildings, much nicer that the ones I saw in BKK. Most of them are businesses, dental or just medical clinics, for obvious reasons. I didn’t check myself, but the Canadian girls said a regular filling costs 500bt. Next time I will save one for a trial. The price seems to be better than in Lithuania already.
And here we come back to temples. This chedi is the one you bump into once you enter a tempple garden just immediately on the other side of the river:
the Temple garden is very cozy, the meeting halls are elaborate, lots of flowers in pots, but one little thing was kind of different – there was a sign on the steps of this chedi, it said No women allowed further. Women there are considered too dirty to climb certain steps…
But luckily – women were allowed to enter the temple garden with freshly painted tiles and do chi-gong together with a bunch of Chinese people with such temple views around us:
The Chinese people had music and their movements were rather easy. So I could join them, no problem. If someone want to do chi-gong with them -it starts at 5 pm every day, in Wat gate temple immediately after you cross the pedestrian bridge across the Ping River.
(to be continued)