Today involved a lot of walking, a random Chiang Mai Buddhist festival and eating durian.  

Seeing as it was our first day here we decided to go out on foot and explore the city.  The main discovery was that this city has a lot of ancient Buddhist temples.  Specifically Wat Chiang Man holds a crystal Buddah and a stone tablet dating back almost 2500 years.  As Jack said to me, this tablet predates monotheistic culture.

The Wat we went to next was situated right next to Chiang Mai's Buddhist university.  We heard that there usual was a place on the campus where people could go and ask monks different questions.  When we got there though it appeared we were slightly gate crashing a community festival.  We were told to return later in the evening to see dance performances as well as good street food so we left to go check out more of the city.     

It was a mega sunny day today so around 2:30 we made our way back to the hotel and siesta'd until the sun (and outside air) were at a more reasonable temperature.  

Heeding the random Thai mans earlier advice we went to dinner at six to get back to the temple for roughly seven.  It was funny because it seemed to us that it was half religious observance and half community talent show.  There were dozens of people putting flowers on a shrine but also twelve year olds dancing and singing on stage.  It was fun to be part of the crowd until it started raining.  By the end my feet were soaked and I didn't have an umbrella so we Tuktuked back to our hotel.  

G-