Chris and Chandi’s Worldwide Adventures

On Wednesday we decided we wanted to see some of the temples in the Chiang Mai area. We had two choices, hire a tuk-tuk or truck to drive us around and explore the temples on our own or go on a tour. Well after awhile we decided a tour might be better because we know nothing about Buddhism and temples and having a guide explain things might be helpful. Well we booked a tour though the office at our guest-house, BIG mistake.

We get picked up by one of the guesthouse tour guides in his station wagon and off we go. First stop after a half hour drive into the country is the Doi Sethup temple. At this point we though our "guide" would show us around the temple and give us a local insight....uh no. Apparently "tour" means, I am going to sleep in my truck while YOU look at the temple. So we spent an hour looking at the temple which was very nice and quite elaborate, I would recommend it. After the temple our guide took us to the Jade Factory which is store where they sell..you guessed it...Jade! They were very slick but due to the fact that everything was extremely expensive we escaped unscathed.

Next we went to two temples in Chiang Mai which we liked very much as well as they were quite old and had more "character" than Doi Sethup. One of them had these little Buddhas that were quite old, the Emerald Buddha which is 1800 years old and the Marble Buddha which is 2500 years old (possible I have reversed the ages though ). Oh and did I mention that the guide sat in the truck for all these temples as well?

Basically the temples were quite nice but I would recommend just taking a tuk-tuk or something like that there and skipping a "tour" as ours really sucked.