We love a good temple day

Our day started out amazingly becuase we treated ourselves to a full English breakfast in an Irish pub around the corner from our guesthouse. We were savvy and shared a breakfast and then added extras to it which saved us a few pounds and we certainly had more than enough food. After breakfast we walked to our first temple of the day. We had 3 in mind that we wanted to visit, all within walking distance within the city walls. At this site they had a men only temple and the sign said women are not allowed in because of their menstrual cycles becuase they believe that this will make the temple unsanitary and dirty. Look at Nick's smug face as he strides on in the temple while I have to wait outside. There were other temples on this site that luckily I was allowed to enter and the level of detail and decoration that they all have always still amazes me. They also love the colour gold! We visited another temple later on which had two huge stupas completely covered in gold paint. We witnessed the worshipers offering a donation and in exchange they received a piece of paper with gold leaf on it. They would then approach a Buddha statue nearby and rub the gold leaf onto it. You could see the top half of the Buddha was the most popular to cover as it was now layered with a beautiful shiny textured coating where as the bottom half still had many areas not covered. This seemed to be a popular ritual throughout all the temples we saw. Along our way we had a few fruit juices and ice lollies to keep up the energy levels in the blistering sun. As it's our last night in Chiang Mai before we head to Chiang Rai tomorrow we decided to have dinner back at the pizza restuarant we loved so much the other night. It did not disappoint and they will forever be the best pizzas, apart from my mum's of course, that we have ever had. My walking sandals are breaking even more now so after dinner we visited the night market with hopes of finding some new ones. Unfortunately no walking sandals but we saw some amazing works of craftsmanship and lovely items for sale. They also had a food area playing music with hay bales for seating. It would of been rude not to get an ice cream here! We were so glad we went as there was so many beautiful things to see and the atmosphere was amazing. It was quite late and dark when we were ready to leave so we got a tuktuk back to be safe and had an early night ready to get up and pack for our mini bus journey tomorrow. Onwards and upwards!Read more