Dave and I arrived at the Chiang Mai airport on Friday night at about 8 p.m. We swiftly caught a cab and after a windy ride down small sois (Thai word for street) we found ourselves at the Royal Guest House. We paid 500 baht for a room with a private bathroom and air conditioner and headed upstairs. Dave dropped his bags and laid facedown on the bed and that’s where he stayed for the entirety of the night. I was planning on catching dinner and drinks with a couple friends, but from the sound of his snores he wasn’t getting up anytime soon, so I snuggled in and turned out the lights.
We woke up really early the next morning and we were starved after skipping dinner the night before. We both forgot our toothbrushes so a visit to 7-eleven was the first game plan of the day. We packed up the book bag, took a look at the huge city map and headed out the door. I thought I remembered passing a seven the night before so we walked in that direction. After a few blocks I realized we weren’t going to pass the one I saw so we just kept walking because we were bound to run into one along the way. Sure enough we saw one up the road, there we found some toothbrushes and toothpaste. Next to the seven was a big morning market. We wandered through and Dave got his first look at how the Thais do business. He was pretty enthralled. Every time I looked over he was stopping to check something out. I bet everything seemed pretty foreign to him, which was no surprise because it still seemed that way to me too. I picked up a bag of rice and a bag of vegetables with curry sauce and Dave opted for a big bowl of soup. We squeezed in at the counter and finished off our breakfast. Then we headed over to another stand to pick up a coffee. It was strong, delicious and only 12 baht so this became our coffee stop in Chiang Mai.
After breakfast we headed back to the hotel and decided to rent a motorbike. I read that exploring the temples via bike was the way to go and I figured Dave could maneuver us around the Thai traffic and was I ever right. After ten minutes on the bike he was consistently driving on the correct side of the road, squeezing through vans and taxis and speeding up in front of tuk tuks. We flew down city streets, small sois and tiny alleys that ended up as dead ends. After zooming around for a bit we decided to stop for a star fruit and consult the map. The people at the fruit stand weren’t much help with the map, but they cut up our 3 baht fruit and gave us some salt to cut the sour taste. We folded up the map and sped up the road. We ended up turning onto a super highway, which was a bit scary to say the least. We pulled off at a gas station to fill up and that’s when we were able to orient ourselves on the map and in the city. We were the exact opposite from where we thought we were, but we still weren’t that far from where we wanted to be so we hopped on the bike and made a left hand turn, destined for the southern edge of Chiang Mai.
After 15 minutes on the bike, we had made it to the general vicinity of Wat Sisuphan, the temple we were trying to find. We stopped at a 7-eleven and I had four men trying to help me figure out where we were on the map. After a few minutes they had helped me locate where I was in relation to the temple. We rode off again only to stop a minute later to ask another man for directions. We made a quick U-turn and headed for the wat. We rode down the main street and failed to make the left turn so again we made a U-turn and asked for directions at a gas station. Everyone was so nice and helpful yet no one could really tell us exactly where we had to get to. They all kept saying to go down the same road we had been going down. We tried again and this time made a left onto a small street. We ran into some men doing construction who motioned us to turn around and continue on the main street. Again we ended up pulling a U-turn. Then we asked a mother and daughter pair at a food stall. They said we were very close. We scoured the street as we road down it at a snail’s pace and this time we saw a sign for the temple, but no place to turn. We turned around yet again and pulled out the map. A couple saw us and came over to help. The man said, “When you see the buffalo statue turn left.” These were the first concrete descriptive instructions of the day, so we were pretty hopeful as we pulled out into the street and sure enough we saw the statue and made a left. We wound down the tiny street and after a few yards it opened up and to the left stood a large entrance to Wat Sisuphan.
We pulled in and parked the bike on the perimeter. Both Dave and I immediately got out our cameras and began taking photos of the wats. There were several on the property. After a couple minutes, an old man walked by us and made a hammering motion and pointed to an area to the left of the temples. We heard banging so we decided to check out whatever he was trying to show us. All the banging was coming from Wat Sisuphan’s Lanna Craft Group workshop area. There were a few monks and about a dozen other older Thai people hammering pegs onto copper, brass and tin to make intricate designs. The finished products were frames, tiles, artwork, adornments for the temples and many other things. Some pieces were small and some took up an entire table, they were so big the artists were sitting on them in order to work on them. One artist who was working with three monks spoke English very well and was able to tell us all about the process. They use a certain sap material that looks like tar to support the metal while they work on it. If the tar wasn’t behind the tin it would bend every which way when they hammered on it, but the tar makes it hard, which makes it easier to work with because then they can hammer away with precision. The artist also explained how the hammering is like a form of meditation. They don’t even have to look at the peg to hit it, the hammer just connects to it through a certain form of concentration they use. After a design is completed, which could take months, the tar is heated and removed. We were able to see the art work in its roughest form, a piece of tin, during the creation process, while it was being hammered out and in its completion, displayed in and on the temples.
Most of the artwork they’re working on is for the new silver temple on the property. The collection box says it will be the first all silver temple in Thailand. Dave and I gave a donation and wrote on the silver leaves, which will be melted down and added to the temple. The leaves each have an animal of the Chinese calendar on them, Dave was born in the year of the dragon and I’m the year of the snake. We wrote our names, birthdays and symbols of love and peace on them and tied them to a tree near the temple. Maybe the monks are hammering away on a piece of silver made from our leaves right now. It was really neat to see a temple being constructed. It’s a pretty plain jane building until all the silver adornments are attached to the outside. The monks have a lot of work until the temple is done, but judging by their pace and precision I have a feeling it’s more about the time spent working on the temple rather than the date of completion. After spending a lot of time looking at every single thing in the store and buying almost one of every thing we wandered back outside the gate to grab a snack. A cute little Thai lady named Nute was making smoothies so we got a mixed fruit one and her husband was selling coconuts so we also got one of those to share. We sat on the steps enjoying our drinks and looking at the temples and across the ground with awe. It was so calm and peaceful yet the breeze was blowing the colored flags back and forth to let you know there was still life and spirits all around. While we were sipping our smoothie a man came up to us and threw us a set of keys, they were to the moped, the one we were renting and not taking very good care of. We all laughed and made a mental note not to do that again, although I’m sure it would end with a similar outcome. Dave was hungry for another smoothie and I wanted my coconut chopped in half so I could eat the jelly so we went to visit Nute again. After wandering around one last time and taking in everything we had just experienced we got back on the motorbike and headed out onto the street. We decided to stop for lunch at the restaurant where were had asked directions. We shared a yummy, but super spicy seafood soup and we each had a plate of rice, mine with veggies and Dave’s with beef and basil. All fueled up and feeling a little tired we headed back to the guesthouse for a little nap before our night of shopping began. As we stretched out on the bed and loaded our pictures onto the computer we marveled again at how calm and focused the artists were. They could surely make boatloads of money hammering out things like rings, ceiling panels or designs for unique woodstoves, but that wasn’t the reason they were practicing their craft, it was all about meditation and exercising creativity.
