The Chiang Mai Insect Museum may claim to be the quirkiest, but -- as I said -- I know my quirk, and they ain't got it. Wat Umong, though -- wowzers!!!
Out towards the zoo, hidden in a dusty residential neighborhood, miles from the nearest high street, in the middle of a forest, sits my new most favoritest thing in Chiang Mai. (Alongside the zoo, wat doi suthep, and bus station khao soy, of course.)
First, the monks have nailed random koans, most of them in thai, to trees through the forest. Some of them are fortune cookies in waiting ("Today is better than two tomorrows." "Marriage is a partnership in life.") but others made me feel remarkably at peace, like this stress-lifter.
Next, they'd taken piles of random broken Buddha bits, destroyed by looters or just accidentally dropped, and glued them together, regardless of size. Ask me? Totally sweet! Like Franken-Buddha!
A motley bunch of religious icons were packed together into a gorgeous large leaf-draped circle.
And then, in case the monks needed to hide or flee, they'd built long tunnels, with escape hatches, connecting avenues, and dead ends. At least that's what it sounded like the purpose was. The English translation of the story was very faded.
All of this was surrounded by other oddities, roosters, weird buddhas, the gentle swish of monks hunched and sweeping, and a catfish-bloated lake.
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