Everyone's a tour guide

They say that when you come to Thailand, the locals have an encyclopedic knowledge of university towns. If you ever come to Thailand I can guarantee you will have a conversation along the following lines:

Local: "Hello!"
Us: (reluctantly, by now) "Hello"
Local: "Where you come from?"
Us: "UK"
Local: "Ah, England? Where in England?"
Us: (here we go again) "Southampton"
Local: "Oh, Southampton?"

At this point, the books suggest that the local will tell you they have a relative going to/who went to university here. Our experience has differed slightly as they seem to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the football...

Local (cont'd): "Ah, they used to be good, not so good now huh? Good players previously" etc.

After this little round of conversation, the next part will almost always be:

"You need a suit?"

or

"Where you going?"

or

"How long you in "

or

"You need tuk-tuk?"

or

"I recommend you go here..." this last one is followed by several itinerary suggestions, of which I remember about 1%!

Anyhow, yesterday, we actually spent a bit of time trying to get a bit cultural and recover from the illness we'd each been suffering so far. We wandered around the streets of Chiang Mai and entered our first temple, followed by a second and then a third for good measure!

The first one was very quiet, but it was a good introduction as neither of us had much of a clue about what to expect and how to behave. Thankfully some locals outside were able to give us a little idea, using a similar conversation to that mentioned above. When in Bangkok, anytime we stopped, we'd be approached by the locals suggesting places we want to go, followed by a cunning swift move to try and get you into a tuk-tuk, for high commission no doubt. In Chiang Mai, there isn't so much pressure, but people still have an opinion they want to share.

We removed our shoes, covered our shoulders and took off our hats before entering the Prayer hall in the temple. As we entered, we were faced with a small Buddha display, and lots of artwork around the walls detailing various historical points, but very few people. There was one Thai chap there who handed us little little fortune sticks, something I felt a little awkward about taking, but as a local offered it to me I didn't want to cause any offence by not accepting it. You closed your eyes and removed a stick with a number, and then you took a piece of paper that corresponded with your number. It seemed to hold little religious meaning, and looked more of a tourist gimmick, but who knows. The papers held little "fortunes", which, much like starsigns in my opinion, could be applied to anyone's situation I'm sure.

Again, the same kind of conversation ensued with this chap and we spent more time speaking to him - he was from down south and spending time up in Chiang Mai on a business trip. He makes a few trips it appears, as again, he had his suggested itinerary for us and made us get out our map so he could show us several ideas of temples we should see, places we could go and a tailor to boot! He gets all his suits made there apparently. High praise for someone who comes from down south (it's cheaper in Chiang Mai as they're closer to where the materials are made).

After leaving this temple, we headed off to the next one. This was a little larger in size and had a few more visitors, including some Buddhist monks wandering around. As a female I have to be very careful around them. Females are not allowed to communicate with the monks directly and certainly can't touch them. Something I had been previously unaware of before coming to Thailand. I only found out in Bangkok when some Buddhist monks were on the boat we used to get around, and someone else tapped us on the shoulder's to get us to move for the monks. I think they'd probably been standing waiting to get by for ages before that moment.

The final temple we went to was more of a village and school, related to the temple we'd just been in. It had many monks in training there and even had a "Monk Chat" corner! This is where you can go and ask the monks anything you like about Buddhism, Thai culture or anything you like apparently. I didn't make use of it this time, but I'm sure it could be interesting to have a chat with them one day. We did notice the signs around suggesting to be careful of the locals - they may be trying to con the tourists. Put much more politely than that, of course.

On leaving the temple, we decided to head back to our hotel finally, and were again met by another local who is apparently not from these parts either. He also gets his suits made in Chiang Mai, and when we asked where that was, it was the same place our first 'non-local' had recommended. Hmmm, either this tailor is amazing or there's something going on here!

It was a good day of exploration for us and I felt like we were beginning to see some real Thailand at last.