Indochina Day 3, Chang Mai

Sunday May 30^th

The train arrived in Chang Mai on time and we offloaded, caught a minivan and arrived at our hotel by 8:00. The whole group had opted for a Thai cooking class, but that didn't interest me, so I went for a walk around the old part of Chang Mai. Once upon a time it was a walled and moated city. Today most of the moat that is left has been converted to fountains and most of the wall is missing except for a few entrance gates. There are numerous temples of various ages and as always they are mostly red and yellow and contain gold images of Buddha either sitting, standing or laying down. I visit a few temples and had a good long walk around the inside of the old part. I was also looking for new sunglasses but no luck today. I stopped and had a mango smoothie at a cafe. Also saw a small market with people selling snack food to locals. That's where I saw the plates of fried insects. No I didn't try them.

Then I went for a Thai massage at the womens' prison! This is a recommended activity by GAP. It is a vocational retraining opportunity for some of the inmates. There is also a restaurant where the can learn cooking and waitressing. The massage was quite good and relaxing. They gave me basically a hospital gown to wear and then she washed and massaged my feet, before moving on to my legs, arms and back. Most of it was just pressure on certain points, but some was twisting your body. For example she held my right shoulder down while my left leg was bent at the knee and she pushed as far as she could over the other leg. Or when she got me in a full Nelson from behind when I was sitting and she twisted me as far as she could in each direction. Anyway, it felt good and if it helps them, so much the better. There were a number of uniformed officers around and I had to pay 180bhat (about $5) to one of them.

After that I walked back to the hotel to meet the group for our afternoon tour. We went by minivan up 1500 metres to the top of the mountain to see a famous Royal temple, called Wat Prathat Doi Suthep. The golden pagoda in the centre of the complex is said to contain relics from Lord Buddha. This is a holy pilgrimage temple for Buddhists. We had to walk up three hundred and four steps from the parking lot. It was beautiful and well maintained. We stayed there to hear the monks chanting outside the temple and then we followed them inside to hear them again. It was quite interesting. They even blessed us with holy water. After that we headed back down the mountain to have dinner. It was at a nice small restaurant and the food was just okay. Then we wandered around the night market for awhile and then back to hotel to get ready for bed.