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Chiang Mai IV: Churching, Shopping & Walking

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KH dutifully attended Sunday mass with me at Cathedral of the Sacred Heart on Sunday morning. Grumbling was at a minimum because English mass started at 11:00 AM. Hehe. Mass was celebrated by an elderly French priest and most of those who came were tourists and expats. They are quite understaffed really. One Indian gentleman acted as reader, altar boy and communion minister. At other times, he would help the priest up and down the steps. I suspect that the two boys in band are his children. When mass was ended, I went around taking pictures. The cathedral has a predominantly woody feel with lots of carvings of bible stories on its wooden doors ( and elephants to give it a Thai feel ). An elderly German gentleman cornered me and nearly talked my ears off with stories of his family and his 36 year old Thai wife. Couldn't understand half of what he was saying. After days of culture and sight-seeing, we embraced capitalism and flagged down a somtheaw to Chiang Mai's

Chiang Mai III: Wat-ever

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Day three at Chiang Mai was designated for temple-hopping. The city really has no shortage of wat s. We took a morning walk to the Old City, the heart of the Chiang Mai which is still enclosed by old walls. Around the walls are also canals that very clean, without any visible rubbish. Made a horrible mistake of having breakfast at SAFE HOUSE Court 's cafe. The waitress got our order wrongs and the food was lousy. 'Nuff said. We were so fussy about what to have for breakfast that we ultimately made a bad choice. Ugh. Our first temple for the day was Wat Pan Ping. It has the typical temple layout with viharn and chedi . What caught my eye was the pair of makara guardians. There were also murals on the walls and quotes nailed on trees. Just one temple and we were ready to sit down for coffee. LOL. Hunted down Ponganes Espresso because of the good reviews and we weren't disappointed. Tried the Australian style latte and double shot afogatto ( excellent kick ).