Observations & The Blue Temple

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August 16, 2022: This is the second post about incredible ‘colourful’ temples in northern Thailand. I hope that, as of tomorrow, I will be back to current posts, as I’ve organized a lot of personal issues that needed to be tackled and am now also going full bore on the business side. However, before getting into a quick look at the Blue Temple, I thought that several initial observations about what I’ve noticed so far since my last visit:

1. There are a lot more condos that have popped up, just like the condo boom in Toronto.
2. Motorcycles still travel, at high speed, on the sidewalks in whichever direction suits them.
3. Sidewalk food hawkers still rule…thankfully.
4. My hospital’s food is still the best…gourmet quality. (See many past food porn posts)
5. Skytrain mass transit fares unfortunately have gone up.
6. The temperature is still hot.
7. Unlike in the west, almost everyone, except foreigners, wears masks in and outdoors. (I wear a mask everywhere. It’s the polite and health conscience thing to do.)
8. Our health system business in 2021-22 has handled more COVID patients than any other service in Bangkok…40,000 inpatients; 17,000 at-home patients; 5,000 inpatient beds spread across five rented hotels (Called hospitels) our two hospitals and our nursing homes; 15,000 meals prepared each day at our two kitchens in each of our hospitals and delivered to all of our sites including the hospitels and homes. The government now sees our health service as one of the more progressive and responsive in Bangkok.
9. The sidewalks are still out to kill pedestrians.
10. When it rains, as it did today, it doesn’t mess around. We’re talking monsoon force rain. Large parts of the city still flood. People get very wet. I got very wet.
11. Heat does strange things to things. This morning, I put on a nice pair of shoes that had not been worn for a couple of years. Half way to the office, the soles fell off of both shoes. Fortunately, I had not walked too far. Like I say, unrelenting heat does strange things to things stuck in a hot space for a couple of years.
12. Apartment buildings like the one I stay in, have managers who take COVID hygiene issues more seriously than in Toronto. Every surface seems to be wiped down on an hourly basis.
13. Thais are as lovely as ever.

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Back to the Blue Temple

Yesterday I brought you the famous White Temple in Chiang Rai, a city of about 70,000 in the extreme north of Thailand.  But white’s not the only colour available, as everyone knows.  How about a Blue Temple?  Wouldn’t you like to see one of those?  No problem.

There is a temple, called Rong Suea Ten that is totally blue.  Naturally, it’s the Blue Temple.  It was built by a student of the fellow who built the White Temple.  It seems like colourful temples in Chiang Rai are designed and built by friends and relatives.

Rong Suea Ten  is a fairly new temple, by Thai temple standards, having  been  completed in 2016. The temple sits on a fairly large site of about 6 acres. The blue color represents the Dharma, the Lord Buddha’s code of morality that when spread over the world becomes as the bright as a blue sky. This temple displays the contemporary Buddhist art that implied the Lord Buddha ‘s doctrine.

As you will see in the photos above and in the video below, this temple is quite lovely and very blue.

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