Watted Out, Again

Day 321
The train pulled in around 8 and I soon jumped into a truck with a bunch of other travelers. I ended up meeting and Irish guy who lives in China named Dezzi. We found a hotel together and he very nicely took the more expensive of the two rooms on offer.

We decided to go to breakfast together and afterwards booked a couple of tours. We then headed to Wat Phra Singh. It was quite beautiful, but there was a beer tent next to it which was really weird. There was a garden next to it that had saying nailed on the trees. When money speaks truth is silent, living without hope is like burying oneself, and if there is nothing that you like you must like the things you have among others. There were also more monks here than I have ever seen anywhere else.

When we were about to leave a guy offered to take us to four different wats for 50 baht if we would go to a handicrafts market afterwards. I normally don’t do these things, but Dezzi was game and I was happy for the company so I went along. I didn’t write down the names of the wats though and have had some problems figuring out where we actually went.

The first two were probably Wat Chiang Mon and Wat Suandok. The first had a crystal Buddha and the second had a mural about his life. The mural was really quite stunning. I just wish that I knew more so that I could have understood it better.

I’m unable to even guess the name of the third place. It was totally white and luminous. It was quite pretty. The fourth may have been Wat Chedi Luang, the oldest in Chang Mai and the former home of the emerald Buddha I saw in Bangkok. I really quite liked the stone relief’s at this one.

At this point Dezzi and I were watted out and wanted to get the handicraft place over with. We were taken to a silk factory and the live worms really freaked me out. We didn’t stay long. We thought that it was over but he told us that there were 3 more stops. Once we argued that he had only mentioned one we compromised to visit one more place for five minutes (he would get commission just for bringing us) and then he would take us back. We fulfilled our end of the bargain and he dropped of off near our hotel.

It was lunch time and we stopped at a noodle place. Dezzi had plans with a friend later on and invited me to join. After resting for a bit we went for some Mexican food. Dezzi’s friend had to leave for a night bus and I didn’t even catch his name. The two of us went out for drinks and chatted about a great job offer Dezzi had gotten but to take it he would have to move and leave his partner. I didn’t want to be out too late because of the tour in the morning and we called it a night around midnight.