Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai - Day 11

We left early again for our drive to Chiang Mai which will take approximately 4 hours.  After about an hour and a half our guide offered to take us to another unusually pretty Buddhist Temple.  We all agreed after seeing the Wat Rong Khun temple, that it is one of the prettiest we’ve seen.  It is all white with the most intricate carvings we’ve seen thus far.  At one point, as you are coming up the walkway into the primary image room, there is a depiction of hell with hundreds of hands reaching up from beneath the earth.  The funniest part was at least two of the hands were giving us “the bird”, and someone had painted the fingernail of one of them bright red!  Shortly after this we stopped for coffee at a local Inn called “Cabbages and Condoms”.  The owner is apparently dedicated to insuring safe sex among the locals.  Needless to say some of the “souvenirs” were quite interesting.  Following lunch at a local Chiang Mai restaurant, we went to a Gem factory, where all three of us succumbed to the lure of rubies, and each bought a ring.  Next we visited a lacquer ware factory, learned the step-by-step process for producing these beautiful handcrafted items, and picked up a couple of souvenirs.  The local craftsmen in this country are so talented it is difficult to resist their wares.  Fortunately both the packing space and the wallet are running out, so we’ll now save money/space for Vietnam.

By the way, we had intended to include some of our photos with this blog, but the system limitations have thus far made that impractical if not impossible.  If we get better accessibility when we are in Bangkok in a couple of days we’ll try to edit in some photos.