Our trip for the daytime was to visit the Buddhist Temple in Chiangmai, Thailand. It was much different than the Grand Palace in Bangkok as it was really a place dedicated to prayer, and not a center for government, being a Buddhist Temple and all. What it did have in common with the Grand Palace was its tendency to finish structures in gold, which is always very impressive.
When you walk up to the main area of the temple, you take your shoes off (as with many places in these parts, even secular ones) and walk in. It's essentially a square with small temples filled with monks and Buddhas around the outside and an inner square lined with statues and a large religious beacon in the middle.
As with most landmarks with religious affiliations in southeast Asia, shoulders and legs must be covered.. so the standard uniform is a shirt and some elephant pants (light pants covered with elephants and crazy designs/colors) or another form of loose, light pants. I happened to have an old, light pair of khakis that work perfectly for a situation like this.. with the only issue being that the pockets on these pants are also a bit loose.. but more on that in a moment.
On the long stairway up to the temple, Frank and I decided to sprint up to get some exercise, since it'd been a little hard to get some in thus far on the trip. This is the first point during which my ATM card and cash might've flown out, as we sprinted up a pretty long flight of steps fairly ferociously.
Once on the main level of the temple, we began visiting the rooms of prayer with the monks and Buddhas. Upon walking into these rooms, one must kneel down and lean forward whilst praying, and the monk says a prayer aloud and sprinkles water on the group. I don't believe I prayed for my ATM card and cash to disappear, but this is the second possibility that could have easily led to it falling out, during the kneeling portion of the prayer. Regardless, after the praying and water sprinkling, we scooted closely up to the monk using our knees (so as not to stand), one by one, to receive our string bracelet which was to bring us good luck. Hopefully the loss of cash and my only form of withdrawing funds was just my way of getting rid of any remaining bad luck in my system to make room for all the good luck to come.. so we'll see how that works out. That said, this little string bracelet has a special significance, as it was tied on by a monk after a prayer, which I took very seriously. The idea is to leave the bracelet on for a minimum of three days, or until it falls off naturally.. and I will choose to do the latter since I really do like it a lot.
After the praying and bracelet reception, we walked around the square to admire some of the beautiful statues and learn a little about their significance. One row of statues around the inner square was to represent each day of the week, where the day on which a person is born will dictate which statue and color the person is connected to in Buddhist lore. I was born in the early-morning hours of the day after Thanksgiving in 1980.. so 12:23am on Saturday, November 29th was my date and time of birth. The important part here is the Saturday - most of the significance around these statues is around which famous kings and royal or religious figures in history were born on that day. Also, the color that represents Saturday is purple, so perhaps I should start wearing more purple.
Next, we decide to walk around the inner circle, which is essentially like doing laps around this beautiful stone/gold-lined track that surrounds this religious beacon of sorts. Someone along the line mentioned that to walk around this structure three times in prayer would bring us much good luck. Sounds good - let's keep stocking up all of this good luck for the bank so it's available when needed.
A quick sidenote - the landscape of cliques within the group has shifted to something reminiscent of high school, with the six guys mostly doing things together and the 12 girls split into a few smaller groups doing the same. FTB and I now mostly hang out with Nick and Damon, two solid Aussie bros.. and the four of us start to walk around this religious beacon.
As we start walking, we see a small group of girls and ask them to confirm that we need to walk around three times since we weren't sure. Jas, an Aussie girl on our trip, quickly responds that it's three times for girls, but six for guys.. so we take her at her word and get our walk on.
Just to set the scene here.. it's hot - probably 80-85. Also, we're wearing long pants due to the knee-covering requirements, plus we're carrying some of our bags and cameras. Walking around this inner square takes 3+ minutes per lap, so now we're talking 20 minutes for this walking expedition.
As we finish about 20+ minutes later, we run into Jas and a few of the girls and tell them how we've just completed the grueling trek around the temple.. but it took forever, we lost count, and we also lost Nick somewhere along the way.. but we're pretty sure we got all six laps in, as Damon was keeping a count as we walked. She then asks us why we went around six times when we only needed to go around thrice: "You thought I was serious about guys going around six times?" Man.. she got us good. That's a page right out of my book. Well played, Jas.
We finally find Nick, and he's exhausted and hot like the rest of us.. but he wouldn't find out about the prank until a few nights later. The hope is that by going around six times instead of the obligatory three, that we've now doubled our luck intake.. so let's just keep stacking up luck and see where it takes us.
At this point, we're all pretty hot and thirsty, so we waltz over to a little outdoor seating area that had some drinks and such. On the way over, there are a couple of nice buildings and statues to take photos of, but those all played second fiddle to the real gem of this excision - the monk standing outside of the monastery, talking on his mobile phone. Now.. I don't know the exact details on the rules around this, but I'm fairly certain that speaking, in general, is not on the table if you're a proper monk. Perhaps as times have changed with technology, so, too, have they changed for religious figures like monks.. but I'm not so sure about that.
Regardless, this would mark the third, and in my opinion, most likely scenario in which my cash and ATM card could have fallen out. Once I saw this incredible shot, I had to take a photo.. and fast. Since my big boy camera was stowed away in its bag for the moment, I needed to grab my own cell phone from my pocket to snap a few shots. I did catch a shot or two of this incredible site.. The problem here is that I had been keeping the rubbebanded cash/ATM card convo tucked away in the same pocket of these loose pants.. so when I pulled the phone out to take a photo, my guess is that my cash and card simply came out with it.. but at least I got the shot, right?
So we have a trip to a Buddhist temple during which there were three good possibilities of my cash and ATM card falling out of my pocket.. but we'll never truly know what happened that fateful day. What we do know, however, is that the Chiangmai Buddhist Temple giveth, and the Chiangmai Buddhist Temple taketh away. I received a very special string bracelet from a monk, and I should've accrued so much good luck during the numerous religious rituals, that it seems like $50 and an ATM card is a relatively small price to pay.
The next activity on this day is one that I was very much looking forward to as soon as I read the itinerary - Thai cooking class! First, we go to meet the teacher of the class in the local street markets of Chiangmai to learn about some of the local fare, and in particular, some of the items we'll be using in our dinners for later. The teacher was just great.. he was so informative and knowledgeable about all of the items he showed us.. where they come from, what they're typically used for, etc.. and he threw in a joke about lady boys about once every five or ten minutes.. and that's always a crowd pleader in these parts.
After learning about the local markets and foods, it's time to head out to his house/cooking school. It's a perfect setup for a cooking class, or any class for that matter - basically a horseshoe of tables/pots+pans+utensils/stoves, all of which surrounded the teacher of the class, as he faces us so he can easily show us what to do. We each have our own stove and cooking utensils (plus a cooking book with Thai recipes), so there's no collaborating for this class - everyone's dinner's fate lies in their own hands and the ability of those hands to cook it.
As I've already mentioned.. the teacher is just great. He describes everything we need to do very clearly, and step by step, so it really isn't difficult to make any of the items on our menu at all. Speaking of the menu, we have Tom Yum soup (I chose chicken over shrimp) to start, followed by Panaang Curry with chicken, Pad Thai wrapped in egg, Thai Chicken with cashews and vegetables, and mangoes and sticky rice to finish off for dessert. Everything is to be made from scratch by us except the sticky rice, which takes hours of preparation to make.. so our rice is already sticky to begin with.
Simply put.. the food was fng awesome. Three days later, I still can't believe how good it was. Surprisingly, my two favorite items were items that I was trying for the first time - Panaang Curry with chicken and mangoes with sticky rice.. just phenomenal. Now I'm excited to try these items back in the city.. so hopefully I won't be too disappointed.
To finish the day off, we went to the Chiangmai night markets unwind. Night markets in southeast asia remind me somewhat of the Grand Bizarre in Istanbul or even some of the street fairs down the alleyways in Seoul. These markets mostly consist of locals and stands selling anything from local food to souvenirs, and bargaining is most certainly on the table. So.. fun.
A bunch of us met up at the markets and did a little shopping for souvenirs and snacks.. and then we went to a local pub for some drinks and pool. This ended up being a low key type of night, which was much needed at the pace we'd been going.
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