Wats Galore

On Friday, I took my first domestic flight in Thailand. As soon as my class finished I got out on the highway (riding public transportation in Thailand sometimes feels hitch-hiking) and caught a bus headed for Phuket. I took a plane from Phuket to Bangkok, then another from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. Jordan, my friend and fellow PiA-er from Puget Sound, teaches first grade in Chiang Mai, and my professor and religious studies advisor Greta Austin was in Chiang Mai visiting for the week with her family, so I flew up for the weekend to spend some time with them all. On Saturday, Greta treated us to a glorious western breakfast with granola, yogurt, and cappuccinos that could have been from any Seattle café. We got an early start on Saturday, which was good because we had many things to do and places to see on our agenda.


We started out at Wat Doi Suthep, a stunning temple one of the holiest chedi in Thailand. It is located at the end of a winding road up Mt. Doi Suthep and at the top of a 306 step staircase. Since we got there before all the tourists arrived, we were treated with a peaceful atmosphere at a delightful chat with a monk who used to be a lawyer in Phuket.

Next, we stopped at Wat Jet Yot. It had some amazing original stucco depicting bodhisattva (Buddhist saints), which is curiously usually associated with Mahayana Buddhism not Theravada Buddhism which is officially practiced in Thailand. It was much more of a quiet local Wat in comparison to Doi Suthep.

The Elephant Conservation Center outside of Chiang Mai was our next on our agenda. It was a really lovely center and we took a short elephant ride around the surrounding jungle before visiting the elephant hospital and the nursery. The conservation center is sent elephants from all parts of Thailand that are either because they are ailing and require the hospital facilities or because they are rescued from the city streets where they are mistreated. Elephants in Thailand were traditionally work animals used in the logging industry. Since indiscriminate logging has been outlawed in Thailand, many elephants are out of work and therefore end up in the cities as tourists attractions. I heard that the Thai government has established a program where it will buy elephants from families that can no longer care for it and send it to a conservation center to prevent the number of elephants that are mistreated in the cities from growing. This conservation center also has a successful breeding program and had an elephant baby that was only 2 months old! It sort of lurked under its mother, where it fit perfectly, and nursed occasionally. The other two youngsters were a bit older and therefore more rambunctious, but just at hairy and cute.



While we were outside of Chiang Mai, we went to Wat Lampang Leung, which has one of the oldest wooden structures in Thailand. It was truly a special place. I have yet to determine the particular significance of the wood poles that had been given as offerings around the Bodhi tree at the enterance to the Wat.



Saturday evening, Jordan and I went out with some of the other PiA teachers who were in Chiang Mai. Most of the teachers in Chiang Mai teach at the university level. Only Jordan teaches young students. The group of PiA teachers who live about 3 hours from Chiang Mai in Nan, where they teach younger students, were also in the city for the weekend, so it was an especially enjoyable night.

Sunday, was a much slower start, but we still saw more Wats than I can remember.









At one Wat we chatted with a monk who used to be a Thai boxer and had even traveled to the US for tournaments. Once he reached champion status 9 years ago, he decided to become a monk. He along with some of the other monks there clearly still work-out!


At another Wat, we visited the various alcoves honoring particularly enlightened monks, which had slightly unsettlingly life-size wax replicas of the monks. The most amazing part about these alcoves were that they had relics on display! I had previously learned that religious relics are rarely openly displayed, and the relics of the Buddha are always enclosed in giant Chedi, but the relics (hair, nail clippings, and bones left after the funeral burning) for these monks were on display in a large class case. They were also individually documented in photographs that were hung around the alcove.

Then, at the last Wat, we were coming around the corner of a building and right there was Donald Duck eating some noodles! Seeing how popular Theravada Buddhist practice incorporates attributes of Mahayana Buddhism, Hinduism, distinctly Thai influences, and Disney cartoons is probably the most fascinating thing about visiting Wats, particularly in Chiang Mai. It was also delightful to see Greta’s daughters so eager to participate and learn how to give Buddhist offerings at the Wats. No surprise though for children of a religion professor.

We spent the evening exploring the Sunday Walking Street, which is a festive atmosphere with what seemed as many Thais and toursists eating and shopping. Chiang Mai has a vibrant style of arts and crafts that was intoxicating since I live in a relatively rural area without much of an art community.

I returned home on Monday and jumped right into class. In my matayom 4 (~10^th grade) class we were finally able to have our restaurant skits that had been postponed due to the festivities of last week. I found a bunch of old dresses, skirts, and jackets in the office and added a few of my own personal favorite dress-up items that I brought with me…some of you might recognize the wig and glasses! My students had a fun dressing-up in ridiculous outfits and I think that donning a new persona helped some of them open-up when they presented.

And one more very exciting piece of news... I found a little house in a neighborhood not far from school that I will begin renting next month! More on that later though.