Chiang Mai: Temple in the Forest
(I am being a busy writer today, aren't I?)
Just got back from Wat U Mong, a temple in the woods outside the city.
Not being very easy to get to (i.e. walkable) or super-super-famous, the place was almost deserted in the midday heat.
We did get there, however, by taking a tuk-tuk (yes, we finally took one). It is much too fun, as it weaves in and out of traffic, the driver and the passengers breathing in the exhaust of vehicles around them, and watching boys in school uniforms, doubled up on motorcycles with backpacks vedged in, or maybe a father with a small child in the front of his motorbike, or even a yong family, mother holding on to the husband-driver with one hand, and cradling an infant with another.
When we got off the tuk-tuk and wandered into the grounds, everything was very parched, very hot, and very very quiet. We could see the monks in some glass building conducting some sort of conference or prayer or other activity, and as we walked up to the stupa on top of the hill, past the half-broken and very old looking statues nestling in the shrubs and brush, past bright squares of orange cloth robes hung out to dry, past green tablets of Buddhist sayings nailed to the trees, we saw only an old man sitting among the ruined monuments. Very Ozymandias.
At the top, a sole monk was standing, staring out at the reservoir, and it was very very quiet.
We walked down to take a look at the famous tunnels that connected various buildings, walking past a group of three rather energetic boy monks (10 or so?) and stared at the ruins of the frescoes inside the caverns and the Buddha statues, accompanied only by a solen 12-year old boy (in civilian clothes thus I assume a visitor), who smiled in greeting and continued past.
When we emerged, however, it was all modernity again, as on coming out of the caves, the first sight to greet you is an incongruously modern telephone booth and (off to the right) a group of chattering schoolgirls, still in their uniforms.
If you wander past, to the reservoir and the bridge, however, it is quiet once again, and the colors are only grey of the water, green of the plants, and the bright organe of two boy monks who are feeding innumerable pidgeons on a very narrow bridge over the water.
When one of them was done and was walking off the bridge, he could not resist the impulse of a child world-wide and stomped his feet repeatedly and loudly, making the pidgeons scatter.
And from then on, to our hot, bright-blue, and rickety tuk-tuk (yes, just like the one in Goong), past the University once again, and hotel and shade.
Just got back from Wat U Mong, a temple in the woods outside the city.
Not being very easy to get to (i.e. walkable) or super-super-famous, the place was almost deserted in the midday heat.
We did get there, however, by taking a tuk-tuk (yes, we finally took one). It is much too fun, as it weaves in and out of traffic, the driver and the passengers breathing in the exhaust of vehicles around them, and watching boys in school uniforms, doubled up on motorcycles with backpacks vedged in, or maybe a father with a small child in the front of his motorbike, or even a yong family, mother holding on to the husband-driver with one hand, and cradling an infant with another.
When we got off the tuk-tuk and wandered into the grounds, everything was very parched, very hot, and very very quiet. We could see the monks in some glass building conducting some sort of conference or prayer or other activity, and as we walked up to the stupa on top of the hill, past the half-broken and very old looking statues nestling in the shrubs and brush, past bright squares of orange cloth robes hung out to dry, past green tablets of Buddhist sayings nailed to the trees, we saw only an old man sitting among the ruined monuments. Very Ozymandias.
At the top, a sole monk was standing, staring out at the reservoir, and it was very very quiet.
We walked down to take a look at the famous tunnels that connected various buildings, walking past a group of three rather energetic boy monks (10 or so?) and stared at the ruins of the frescoes inside the caverns and the Buddha statues, accompanied only by a solen 12-year old boy (in civilian clothes thus I assume a visitor), who smiled in greeting and continued past.
When we emerged, however, it was all modernity again, as on coming out of the caves, the first sight to greet you is an incongruously modern telephone booth and (off to the right) a group of chattering schoolgirls, still in their uniforms.
If you wander past, to the reservoir and the bridge, however, it is quiet once again, and the colors are only grey of the water, green of the plants, and the bright organe of two boy monks who are feeding innumerable pidgeons on a very narrow bridge over the water.
When one of them was done and was walking off the bridge, he could not resist the impulse of a child world-wide and stomped his feet repeatedly and loudly, making the pidgeons scatter.
And from then on, to our hot, bright-blue, and rickety tuk-tuk (yes, just like the one in Goong), past the University once again, and hotel and shade.