The leafy village of Chompoo, sits around 20 minutes out of Chiang Mai, off Highway 11, and is a beautiful place to visit, with its large village ‘square’ centred around the small but delightful, Wat PayaChompoo.
In the future I will try and get more information on its history, but this will involve some time chatting to the Monks there; being a village Temple, off the tourist trail, there is no English info.
In front of the Temple is the canal where you will see many huge catfish, and maybe join in the popular pass time of feeding these hungry monsters.
Something else I want to find out is the story behind the fish. They are clearly significant to the village, judging by the village sign which is overlooked by a large sculpture of, yes you guessed it, a fish!
The large tarmacked square is home to a stunningly beautiful tree;( anyone care to identify it?
So much I need to do to improve these write ups; history to discover; botany to identify; comments and assistance are always welcome.
The Wat is guarded by two impressive Dragons at its entrance.
The Temple itself is small but nonetheless attractive. The modest Chedi behind the Temple has one of the pulley systems for blessing the Chedi by dousing it with water from a silver bucket , decorated by a lovely phoenix type bird.
Inside the Temple, more of that Temple artwork, with many scenes from the Buddhas life depicted on the walls.
My first visit here was brief and I will endeavour to return for more photos and info. Although the grounds are modest there appeared to be quite extensive buildings, most probably a Temple school as well as Monks accommodation.
The young novices we saw there were very happy, (and why not?), living in such a peaceful setting .
for more photos from Wat PayaChompoo please visit our photobucket album here.
We had no mad rush so relaxed here in the morning, taking a late breakfast at the local cafe and heading into Chiang Mai at around midday.
Wat Chetupon is not such a big Temple but has some extensive ‘school’ buildings and its compound contains many trees, facilitating a very relaxing atmosphere.
On the way out we came across the Saturday walking street market that is also located behind The Prince Royals College. We saw all sorts for sale there, from hotdogs, to motorbikes; t-shirts to exhaust pipes.
Chompoo really is a delightful village, centred around the local Temple and canal.
It looked like it would be quite a while before the market really got going and we decided to head home.
After a prolonged period of feeling a little under the weather, I’m back on form and ready to give you more daily trivia from our humble Guest House , here in the Heart of Chiang Mai.
