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Chiang Mai

Dan & Jeanne's home

Dan & Jeanne’s home

While in Chiang Mai we stayed with our good friends, Dan and Jeanne who are the MCC Area Directors for SE Asia. The live in a wonderfully comfortable traditional Thai house. It’s a mostly open house which is great for the hot weather we experienced while there.

One day we explored the city of Chiang Mai, founded in the late 13th century. The “old” city is enclosed by a mile square moat and parts of the brick defensive wall. We walked around half the moat and wandered inside the moat also. Suan Buak Haad City Park at the southwest corner of the moat was a very pleasant public space to relax. There are formal gardens arranged around a series of pools and bridges, a children’s play area, an exercise route around the inner walls, and places where refreshments are available. We stopped mid-morning for refreshment.

There are more than 300 Buddhist temples in the Chiang Mai area. We visited only one within the city walls. Phra Singh is one of the famous temples with a famous Buddha statue claimed to have been brought to Chiang Mai from Sri Lanka in the 14th century. The paintings on the walls were especially interesting.

We also visited three museums which helped us understand a bit of the history of Chiang Mai and learn about the Lanna culture of the north. And we are always intrigued by open air markets found through Asia.

We were also able to meet up with MCC workers who we previously had known in Uganda and South Sudan. They were staying in Chiang Mai awaiting their first child. We were able to do some “touristy” things with them and then the day before we left, Lillian Juniper was born. It was fun to be able to share their excitement.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2015 at 1:55 pm and is filed under Thailand. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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