Merry Christmas!

We just wanted to let you know that we are getting all of your comments. We love all of you very much and hope you have a Merry Christmas! It's 3PM here, but 2AM there your time...so Santa should be visiting now!

We just got back from a tour of many temples and factories. We saw the most important temple today, called the Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. This temple sits 3500 feet above sea level up in the mountains of Chiang Mai. The temple was beautiful, we saw many monks and buddhist worshipers. This religion is very facisnating and make me so curious and somewhat envious of how well these people live (calm, passionate, patient, etc.) The Buddhist believe that we should live a balanced life - not too high, not too low and that we should feel satisfied with what we have and to not desire more and more. They believe you should live without conflict and know that this life belongs to your God (Buddha).

The rituals of these people and their charity is amazing. Most of the temples are built by donations only and the Monks survive on the donations from other Buddhist only. They are not allowed to shop for any food, clothing, worldly possesions at all. The temple we visited today held some of the Buddha's relics. Legend has it that the White Elephant carrying the Buddha's relics on his back wandered through Chiang Mai, up the mountain, and laid down and died in this very spot. Thus, they had the forsight to build the temple here. Unfortunately, the road to the temple was only built 80 years ago so people from all over the world would spend days climbing the mountain to pay their respect to Buddha. However, 80 years ago one of the famous Monks decided to build a road. The Thai people were too poor to donate money for the construction, so with a little help from the government and hard working Buddhists, they built the road in 5 months. Now as you pass the gate to this temple, you honk or pay your gratitude to this Monk for his graciousness to build a road for the Buddhist people.

We took a private tour, which was good because we learned the story of Buddha. Buddha was reincarnated 10 lives. In his last life he had finally given everything of himself to the people. He no longer desired for anything. He reached final enlightenment when a man from the village came and asked that now he give up his children to become slaves in his home. Buddha had already given all his possessions/valuables, his work, and even his home to the people, and was now being asked to give up his children. While this was very hard for him and his wife, he knew that his children would be fine and that their lives did not belong to him. He gave them up to this man and then found enlightenment in his next life. In his next life, born as a prince, he left home at 19. While he was given every worldly possession because he was of royal decent, he was still not happy. He knew that beyond the walls people were old, sick and dying. When he left the palace, we went and lived in the forest, sitting under a Banyan tree. This is why you see many Buddha figures under trees. He sat and meditated for many years, fasting at first, and then realizing he needed some food to concentrate on his meditation. At the age of 35 he finally reached Nirvana and then spent the rest of his life teaching others.

I may have some of this wrong - the translation was not perfect. But facsinating either way. It really teaches you that you should be happy and content in this life because the most important time is now - not the past and not the future because it is unknown.

On our way back from the main temple we saw many more temples in Chiang Mai, beautiful wood crafting and wall tapestries. We also stopped at a silver factory, where we watched them make beautiful silver products. They actually do this by hand, hammering every detail into a ornately decorated bowl. We also went to the Jade factory and learned about Jade. Jade is not only green - it comes in white, black, orange, lavender, and blue. Very beautiful and easy to fake, so they warned us against buying this in the night market...they obviously wanted us to buy from them!

We are heading over to the pool now for some good food and relaxation! Then we will venture to dinner downtown and the night market again this evening. Jeff is not following the Buddha's way - he desires more souvenirs...and the Diesel jeans they sell for $30...HA HA HA.

Fun Facts about Chiang Mai:

- 2 Million people live here in Chiang Mai
- 95% are Thai
- They love the royal family, especially their King...pictures of him everywhere
- Yum Kum is the traditional food here, Green Curry is also very well recieved here
- There are roughly 1200 temples here
- Chiang Mai is surrounded by a wall. The original wall has fallen, but has been rebuilt by the people.
- the elephant is the most important animal in Thailand. Very smart and very well trained..in fact Jeff and I fed one today and his instructor asked him to pass the empty basket back to him and he did! So cool.


Until tonight,
Jenn and Jeff