A Lamphun Gallery - To Begin Again - CycleBlaze

A Lamphun Gallery

The old section of Lamphun, within the moat and ancient city walls, is totally walkable.  Lamphun is an ancient kingdom which nearby Chiang Mai eventually incorporated into its Lanna Kingdom.  We had a nice time walking around looking at beautiful temples and eating everything from great Vietnamese food to khao soi to fish cakes at the weekly Friday night Walking Street.  It was a very quiet town and we saw no other foreign tourists, only a few Thais touring their country in huge buses.  It was a wonderful place to stay a couple of days before entering much bigger and more hectic Chiang Mai.

The main and most important temple in Lamphun, Wat Phra That Haripunchai. The "Phra That" means that it has a Buddha relic, in this case a hair placed in the chedi in the year 895. The huge white gate right in front of the temple is characteristic mostly of the area around Lamphun and Lampang. The gate originated in India hundreds of years ago and is not seen much anywhere else in the country.
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Rachael AndersonWow! How beautiful!
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2 years ago
Ron SuchanekThat's amazing.
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1 year ago
The main city gate and wall.
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The main city gate and wall from outside the moat.
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Ron SuchanekI'm still working on the moat at your house. By the time you get back it'll be twice as big as the one in the picture. I've run into some red tape with importing the piranha and Crocs. But don't worry, it'll all pan out. You'll love it.
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1 year ago
The central market of Lamphun.
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There are lots of nice places to eat at the central market.
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All the various curry pastes. The aroma was amazing! They are priced by the half kilo, which means that from $1.25 - 1.75 you can buy a pound of fresh curry paste. A pound is quite a lot of curry paste!
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Mark Lellmansometimes I wonder about Google Translate - It says that the curry in the upper right translates as "Mrs. Yuk" I really wonder about that one.
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2 years ago
We don't know the name of this stuff but it is one of our favorites if and when we ever find a woman making it. She steams a thin layer of coconut/rice flour mixture on a thin cloth then separates out a few sections and adds some crushed peanuts and unidentifiables and folds them over. Topping is toasted garlic. They are a taste treat. There were ten of them in this little tray for 10 Baht or $.27.
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There are still a few samlors being used in Lamphun, rare now days and nonexistent in larger cities.
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The tour buses in Thailand are over the top when it comes to decoration but I've never seen one this over the top. No idea why all of this! Don't ask me what it's for. I just hope the driver can still see out the windshield.
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Mark LellmanI would think that it would be a full time job keeping all of those speakers? clean. Bugs alone would be a chore. The driver must travel with a cleaning boy stowed somewhere. I'd like to hear him hit the horn.
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2 years ago
Bruce LellmanTo Mark LellmanI think there actually is a cleaning boy stowed in there.
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2 years ago
Jen RahnThat bus looks like an alien!

Maybe this vehicle is used for selling bodymobiles?

Can you imagine the bodymobile jingle coming out of those speakers?
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2 years ago
Kristen ArnimIs that… the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man?
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2 years ago
Andrea BrownTo Kristen ArnimThat’s his cousin, Michelin Tire Man.
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2 years ago
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Steve Miller/GrampiesVery cool airbrushing!
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2 years ago
Main street of Lamphun, Thailand.
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Taken from inside a nice restaurant.
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The temple that went with this chedi is long gone, probably destroyed by invading and conquering Burmese but the chedis often remain. They are sacred due to the fact that they represent the burial mound of Buddha so they can never be removed. Therefore you find the ancient ones in odd places.
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Wat Chang Rong
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Wat Chang Rong
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Wat Chang Rong during the evening monk's prayer time which usually starts at sundown.
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Steve Miller/GrampiesMakes Notre Dame de la Garde look a little dowdy!
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2 years ago
Wat Chang Rong is nearby the most important temple in Lamphun but I liked this one better.
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Wat Chang Rong. The Naga is the serpent-protector which is not being eaten by the Makara (another watery dweller) which it always looks like, but instead is coming out of the Makara, triumphantly I might add.
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Wat Chang Rong. You know you are in northern Thailand when you see whimsical things like animals on the peaks of the roofs of temples. Often there is a lone chicken. Hear a row of elephants. This is one way the temples of northern Thailand are more personal.
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Wat Chang Rong. The chedi is always placed at the rear of the main temple which is called the viharn.
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The library at Wat Chang Rong. Libraries are always small structures and are place high up. I'm not sure if that is to protect the books from possible flooding or if they are so sacred they need to be placed higher up. The books are sacred texts hand written in the ancient language Pali, on long, narrow palm leaves.
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A mural on the outside rear wall of Wat Chang Rong depicting the temple and its setting in ancient times. The main gate to the city, the moat and Wat Chang Rong in the lower right. Interesting that they reversed the orientation of the temple so that we could see its front.
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At the Friday night Walking Street. Walking Streets have become quite popular in recent years in any town of size. There is loads of food as well as clothing and the Thais love them so much. This one was jammed with people. We saw no other tourists and it's so nice to see Thais enjoying their new invention of Walking Streets.
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Another temple. I forgot which one.
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Khao soi. This one came with TWO chicken drumsticks. Never had that before.
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We had one of the best meals of the trip at a Vietnamese restaurant. This is barbecued ground pork wrapped in fresh betel leaves.
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Mark LellmanOK, you've made me hungry again. Fortunately, I stopped at Tracy's this afternoon and picked up a couple of Bahn Mi's for Matt and me. I wish they were priced in baht.
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2 years ago
Bruce LellmanTo Mark LellmanThis Vietnamese restaurant was a big surprise and we had an outstanding meal there. In Vietnam we were paying $.30 for a bahn mi. We never see them in Thailand. The khao ji pate in Laos come close to a bahn mi.
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2 years ago
Wat San Pa Yang Luang
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Wat San Pa Yang Luang
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Wat San Pa Yang Luang
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Wat San Pa Yang Luang in Lamphun, Thailand. Here again is that massive white gate-like structure so common in this area. This one is the closest we saw to the temple itself.
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There are lots of things to watch out for when walking.
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lovebruce

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Steve Miller/GrampiesReally great temple shooting!
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2 years ago
Bruce LellmanTo Steve Miller/GrampiesThank you, Steve. It's easy when you have such beautiful and willing subjects.
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2 years ago