An Unhelpful Guide to Asia: Return of the Jeeti

We are back from our trip to the middle of Thailand. Not the best weekend trip ever, mainly because of the guy who lead us. He looked and acted a lot like my grandpa about 15-20 years ago. But Asian, and with those super large nineties glasses. He also really liked temples. I do not know what I will do now that I'm not hearing temple speeches multiple times a day. Repeating what he just said was he other noticeable feature. He would talk for five minutes then say "Okay, now I repeat" and keep going. Most of us started wandering around taking pictures while he talked because it was the same as what he said at the last temple.

Friday (Lampang)

Drove for a couple hours after meeting our guide for the weekend and promptly forgetting his name, later learned it was Ajan Rieng. He brought an assistant with him but never introduced us. Instead of us all piling into one van we got two this weekend!!
Got out at a temple. It was interesting because temples are supposed to have one entrance to the main sanctuary while this temple was open all the way around.

There are five parts to a temple

The main sanctuary
The secondary sanctuary
The jeeti (it's pronounced like Jedi but with a t instead of a d)(It is the most important part of the temple)
The monk's living quarters
The image of La Buddha

You have no idea how well that is engraved into my memory.

Stopped for lunch at this beautiful restaurant where there were little streams flowing through it and some very big koi fish. Plus, the food was delicious. Spicy, but delicious.
Our next stop was some ruins. Our guide did not make much sense so all I know is that they are made from a specific stone found in the ground that you dig up and let dry. It looks pretty cool. We wandered around there for about an hour while our guide told us how evil the french were because they had saved the ruins from going under water. Not sure if that's correct.

Our guide hates the French and the Chinese. Which is strange since he's half Chinese but he loved to make socially awkward jokes about both.

We stayed until the sun started going down. Then we went to our fancy hotel. There was a main area then two hexagon shaped areas. We were in the one with the pool. It was really cold but so much fun!!
Found a Thai soap opera that's really engaging even through the language barrier. It's about this grown-up woman who has amnesia and sees herself as a little girl. Like, first grade or younger. They switch between the grown-up actress and the little girl. She's living at home with her mother, because her father walked out in the middle of the night, and her husband/boyfriend.

Saturday (Sukothai, Phitsanulok)

Had to get up and leave by 8:30 (as we were told multiple times by our guide last night).
Started out the morning with a bike ride around some ancient ruins. Best thing we have done on this trip so far. The exercise was really nice until I banged myself on the back of the bike. There's a lovely bruise there now.
I liked these ruins more than the ones on Friday. They were more intact and had a better story behind them. That or it was the bike riding.
After lunch we drove to this museum with the air conditioning in our van not working and the windows didn't open. Not the most fun ever.
When we got to the museum we were informed we would be on TV. Basically it was a stop for our guide to interview the owner of the museum. Then he tried to get us interested in random artifacts on the first floor. The crew interviewed Drexler for a moment. Most everything was written in Thai so looking around got boring quick and we were excited to go see the shop because there was an aquarium attached to it!! Not really, it was three rooms of fish tanks but close enough.
We got to the hotel early and went swimming!! With everyone!! Yay.

On the way back to our rooms Deanna, Donna and I took the elevator in just our swim suits because we did not bring towels. The elevator stopped at the lobby floor and opened to a bunch of older men who immediately started commenting on our appearance and one whistled at us. A rather traumatizing but funny experience.

For dinner we went to this restaurant where you can catch your dinner. If your group orders this dish then it will be thrown to a member of your group to catch with a trashcan lid. I went first and had a successful catch, as did Karen and Donna.
Tried some frog. It was really good. We all tried ordering 'Northern food' because no one told us we weren't in the North anymore. Then we tried ordering sticky rice and the guide said no because we weren't in his homeland anymore and we weren't allowed to have outside there.

Lilith grossed everyone at her table out by hogging the delicious fried chicken, eating it with her fingers, and dipping her spoon (the only utensil that goes in your mouth besides chopsticks) into the soup. I feel Barbara has caught on to her.

Sunday

Made a makeshift funnel cake for breakfast!!
Went to a close by temple to see the most beautiful sitting Buddha in the world. Turned out that the Buddha wasn't beautiful it was his back drop.

We also had our fortune's told. There wasn't a good one in the group.

In Buddhism you make merit by giving food to the monks or donating to the temple or setting animals free. This is why I actively hated our guide by the end. He lead us to a booth that sold captured animals and you paid one hundred baat to free them. There was snakes, turtles (who were also trying to escape the bag they were in), fish and two panicking birds. They were in a cage barely big enough for one. We pleaded for him to free the turtles or the birds but he took two bags of fish and walked off calling us to come with him. The fish didn't care they were in a bag. I bought the birds and set them free. Even though I bought into their system, I still feel good about it. He then tried to justify his buying the fish instead of the birds but my opinion of him had been cemented by this point.
At this restaurant in the middle of nowhere we stopped at we found out that our guide was the Dean of Chiang Mai University. The second largest one in Thailand. The one we attend. He became a bit intimidating after that.
Stopped at yet another temple!! The jeeti (the most important part of the temple) was really old so we were forced to admire it. Then we were allowed to walk around after another fifteen minute talk on temples (I swear he ran out of material to talk about after the fourth one and was making up random facts/repeating everything again). This temple claimed to have four footprints of Buddha but they don't make sense. For instance, the smallest one was around five feet long and the biggest one was about ten feet long.
Piled back in the van and we were at the guesthouse really quick. Less than 30 minutes quick. This trip did not make much sense.
We rested for a bit then the Winos went to the Sunday market. I got a pair of purple flowy pants with elephants on them!! And I bartered them down too!! We found a student fashion show going on and watched that for a little bit. The outfits were the strangest mix of Asian and Western.

We had roti for dinner, for some reason the person making them gave me banana, egg, chocolate, and condensed milk. It was good, but I don't think I'll try it again. We wandered around some more, bought this delicious drink of almost pure white chocolate with a little dark mixed in. Then we found a stand selling noodles for ten baat so I got some. Then a miracle happened: there's a vender that makes fresh cotton candy in Chiang Mai!! And it's really fluffy!!

After that ominous winds started blowing so we tried to get back before it started raining. We got back wet but not soaked.

Here's the first temple. The gold tower is the jeeti. It is the most important thing in the temple.

Here is another jeeti at the first ruins we went to. It is the most important thing in the temple.

The biggest Buddha I have ever seen. Some people believe that the image of La Buddha is the most important but no, it is the jeeti. This is from the second ruins we went to.

Some of the people I'm here with. From left to right: Lilith, Niko, our guide/the Dean, Alessa. This temple was at the second ruins. I think it was a temple.