The alarm goes off very, very early. We’re heading up the mountain to chant with the monks during sunrise, but that involves waking up way before sunrise. The 5am meeting point is a 15 minute walk, and the hotel has a bagged lunch, complete with piping hot coffee, waiting for us as we breeze by the front desk.
We always find the hardest part of walking directions on
your phone is the first few minutes, when you and GPS are not quite synched up
yet. This morning we are far from
synched and get 6 blocks in the wrong direction before correcting course. Now stressed, we pick up the pace, but we’re
not going to make it. Out of nowhere, an
elderly man in a beat up 60-year-old tuk tuk is stopped in front of us. Seeing our anxiety, he offers to drive us… in
a minute. We look at the back seat and
there are paper plates of fish heads. As
the man gets out of the bike, he greets an approaching street cat who has been awaiting
his breakfast. We get in and are not
sure what to make of the battered trike and weathered driver, but hey, we’re
moving now. For about a block and a
half. Our driver stops again and two
more cats approach. The man explains
that these are the mother and brother of the first cat, and that he has been looking
out for them every day for about two years now.
This simple act of caring in a dark, dirty alley puts things into
perspective for us, especially considering that we dedicated our morning to
witnessing man’s attempt at enlightenment.
The tuk tuk stalls out pretty much every time we stop at a light, but
miraculously restarts every time, too. Somehow,
this whole 10 minute micro-experience calms us, grounds us, and we leave our
new friend with much gratitude.
We climb into the van with a few others, make two additional
stops to fill out our tour group, and within minutes, we’re on the twisty roads
up the mountain. Our guide for today was
a monk for 11 years, so he’s uniquely qualified to explain not only the facts
about Buddhism and the temples, but about the practical experience of the
life. About halfway to the first temple,
we pull into an overlook to see the lights of the city stretched out before us. For a former monk, he’s not a bad
photographer.
It’s the roads and the hour that makes us wooshy over the
last 20 minutes of the ride, not the driver, and we’re thankful when we finally
arrive at our destination. Wat Prathat
Doi Suthep (wat = temple, doi = mountain, Suthep = the name of the mountain) is
the most important of the 1500 temples in Chiang Mai as an actual relic bone of
the Buddha is enshrined inside the massive gold leaf pagoda. The 309 steps to the entrance are flanked by
a pair of the longest Nagas – ornate, dragon shaped railings used to express
protection and wisdom – in the north. The
13 of us all make the climb with various levels of huffing and puffing. At the top, we’re greeted by a pair of Yakshas
guarding the entrance.
Our guide takes care of the tickets and gives us a bit of
history of the site and understanding of the monk’s daily lives. In short, being a monk is the quest for enlightenment. Enlightenment, in its truest Buddhist form, is
achieving a state of perfect wisdom, profound insight into the true nature of
reality, and the total cessation of suffering and ignorance. It’s a beautiful concept of finding peace and
overcoming human shortcomings like greed and anger while fostering boundless
compassion for all beings. It’s extremely
rare to fully achieve, and the last person who did died in 483 BC. The half a million monks in Thailand receive
the loving support of the people in hopes that one of them will be the next living
Buddha.
We climb the final short staircase and get our first look at
the temple. It’s stunning.
We follow the sounds to the assembly hall where the monks
are performing their morning chants. It’s
a form of mediation and praise, rhythmic and ritualistic. We sit in the “respectful” pose, cross-legged
right over left, hands on knees, palms up, close our eyes and engage in “simple
meditation”, trying your best to clear your mind and focus only on the terminus
of your breathing. It’s a moving and powerful
experience even for the most skeptical of people.
In the courtyard, our guide explains that Buddhists follow
the Five Precepts – no killing, no stealing, no sexual misconduct, no lying, no
intoxication – like Christians follow the ten commandments. Buddhist monks however, are held to a much
higher standard and are given 227 Precepts to guide their daily life and
actions. He also explains some of the
symbolism of the statues and figures.
His talk ends with him giving each of us a lotus flower and two small
candles, instructs us how to hold them properly, then sends us to walk
clockwise around the golden pagoda three times.
At the end of our third lap, we place the flower on the
offering table, light both candles, place them on the rack and silently ask for
what we need most in the moment. Mandy
is moved to tears.
The pre-sunrise light is changing the color of the sky,
which changes the color of the pagoda.
Our timing here is not a coincidence.
Next, the senior most monk sits to give each of us a
personal blessing and the gift of a Sai Sin, a small red string bracelet for protection,
good luck, and a reminder of mindfulness and compassion. Evan as a natural critic of religion, I feel
the power in the moment.
It’s the start of the burning season in the north of Thailand
and neighboring Laos and Myanmar, the practice of burning the farm fields in preparation
for the next planting. It’s incredibly polluting,
but continues on despite being illegal and carrying harsh fines and prison sentences
due to the cost of the alternatives. We
expect this morning’s sunrise to be hindered by the smoke and haze, which it
is, but instead get this crazy red shape trying to break through. It’s another gift we’re given this morning.
Walking back to towards the entrance, we see the toll the
rigorous schedule and early hours take on the younger monks.
Last thing before we leave is to offer alms to the monks in
a ritual known as Tak Bat. All the monks
line up in order of seniority, then walk by the crowd with pots as the
onlookers put in donations of food. I can’t
help but comparing the experience to trick-or-treat. Because monks do not cook or prepare their
own food, they rely on these daily offerings for sustenance. Prior to the rise in tourism, this had traditionally
occurred as the monks walked through the nearest village at sunrise, because monks
are not allowed to eat after 11am. The
act of giving food to the monks is believed to bring good karma to the giver.
It’s a LOT to have happen before 7:30am. As we walk down the 309 steps, we notice the illusion
of the dragon’s tail. Going up, the tail is green, coming down it’s yellow. At the bottom we sit at an open air restaurant
for a traditional breakfast, allowing us time to process and commune with our
fellow travelers.
Back in the van we head down the mountain to our next stop,
Wat Pha Lat, the Hidden Temple. Set in
the forest and less visited than Wat Prathat Doi Suthep, it offers serenity and
tranquility.
Our last stop of the morning is Wat Umong, the Tunnel Temple,
with it’s unique underground architecture and large, ancient Cheddi.
Back in the van, we engage in friendly chit chat with the
other travelers and choose to get dropped of in the Old City. We explore a bit, but keep coming to the same
conclusion… we need a massage. After an
nice 60 minute session, it’s time for lunch.
When you think Michelin Star restaurants, you probably think of formal,
stodgy dining palaces with complex, multi-course pre fixe menus, and that is
the case most places in the world. Here
however, Michelin recognizes the best of the food scene without the expensive
trappings. Most of the designees here in
Chiang Mai are street food stands and tiny resturants that you would walk by
without a second thought. We pass one of
these award winners, Pari, and can’t pass up the opportunity. It consists of a 12 seat dining room, and an
additional 5 seats at a very narrow counter facing the tight open kitchen. Overall, it’s smaller then a two car
garage. There are a total of three lunch
items on the menu, and we pick the Mountain Fried Rice and Beef Curry Bowl,
served “full set” with miso soup, fresh salad and the most photogenic fried egg
on the planet. The meal is simplicity perfected.
Fine ingredients meet skill and
technique.
We find another crazy tuk tuk driver who narrowly avoids group
death and dismemberment a dozen times on our way back to the hotel. We’re laughing the entire time.
The Saturday Night Market is in Old City and is considered
the big weekly market. We get there and
the crowds in the in the narrow cattle shoots of rows and the traffic aggressively
running through the middle of it are an immediate turn off for us. Maybe we’re just near a busy entrance point,
but we see no let-up in site, so we ditch the market for some quieter Old City
streets. As we walk by Chala, the restaurant
with the same name as the hotel which surrounds it, we hear strains of Jack
Johnson played by a local musician wafting through the air. This is where we’re supposed to be tonight.
