Yesterday we went to the Arcade bus station and took a green bus to Lamphun. We were going to go to Lamphang first which is about three times the distance but we both didn’t sleep well and got up late.
Getting to Arcade bus station from Hang Dong is not that easy. First you have to take a yellow bus somewhere downtown. Then you have to stop a red bus and take that the rest of the way. Last time we took the yellow bus to Chang Puak bus station which is on Thanon Chang Puak. This road runs north from about the middle of the north city wall. Not far north of the bus station, you will find the Thanin market. It seems like it should be easy to find transportation from this bus station to the other one, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
But this time we were in luck. Before we boarded the bus in Hang Dong, Tui asked the driver where to catch the bus to Arcade. She found out that this yellow bus went all the way to Warowot market and that was the best place to get a red bus to Arcade. We found that this yellow bus went almost all the way to Warowot but we had to transfer to another yellow bus (no charge) to go the full distance. And sure enough, we had no problem getting a red bus to Arcade from there.
When we got to Arcade bus station, Tui wanted to check out the green line before we crossed the street to where the Nakhonchai Air company is. She had learned that this is the best bus company. But when she talked to one of the Green Bus agents, she found that it was cheaper so we got a couple of tickets from them for ฿32 each and only had to wait about 15 minutes before departure at 10am.
The trip down to Lamphun was very quick and there wasn’t much interesting to see. And by the way, although we didn’t take the best Green Bus, the VIP, it was called VX and had the great advantage of NOT showing a horrible movie! This bus takes route 11 to near the center of Lamphun, then takes 114 the rest of the way in.
Tui wanted to see the main temple in town, Wat Phra That Hariphunchai. We were told that we could get a purple bus there which wasn’t far away. Unfortunately, the bus turned out to be a van which was mostly white with a purple wavy pattern near the bottom so we missed one before we found out.
It only took about 5 minutes to get to the back of the temple where we were dropped off. I wasn’t very impressed with the temple at first until I learned that there is a lot to it. Some of it looks cheap, almost cartoonish, but there are some very nice parts to it and the whole thing has a pretty open plan with a large temple and a huge gold, gold chedi in the middle.
The huge gold chedi
People burn candles then walk around the chedi on a rubber mat, while waiing with the hands
Two studies in gold, first by Tui then by Tubby
Golden umbrella with golden chedi behind
People burned candles and then walked around the chedi while waiing. I never found out why.
There is an OPOP market across the street from the wat entrance that has some very nice goods, mostly women’s clothing.
After visiting the wat we found a noodle shop nearby that had pretty good noodles. We walked along the river to get there which was very nice and pleasant but needed some maintenance, mostly in the form of old plastic bag renewal.
Here is a scene on the river
We were told that we could catch a bus back to Chiang Mai from behind the temple where we were dropped off. We did that and caught a local bus. The trip was much more interesting than the trip down. There are hundreds of 200 year old trees lining much of the way. They are very large and very, very close to the road making a very impressive site. Unfortunately I didn’t get a photo.
Nakhonchai Air
Tel: 02 936 0009
http://www.nca.co.th
Tortui 