[wowpow]

"According to legend (as chronicled in a book called The Popular History of Thailand) Chiang Mai was founded in 1296 on the strength of an omen. The story goes that the city's founder, Mengrai the Great, absolute monarch of the Lanna Kingdom, was stag hunting one afternoon in the Ping River valley when he spotted a large mouse followed by four smaller mice slip down a hole in a Bodhi tree (a Ficus religiosus, the species under which Buddha is purported to have achieved enlightenment).

The king had been looking for a spot for another city state to extend his power base southward from Chiang Rai and the five mice down the Bodhi tree was apparently a hallelujah moment for him. He called in some friends, most notably King Ramkamhaeng of Sukhothai, to get their opinion of the location, and when they agreed it was a likely place for a new city, he set his minions to work.

Ultimately, the king turned the administration of Chiang Mai - which means "new town" - over to his son and returned to Chiang Rai, but one hundred and forty five years later, the king's great grandson, King Phayu, made Chiang Mai the official capital of Lannathai which it remained until the late 18th century, when the Lannathai Kingdom was incorporated into what is now modern day Thailand.

It's not surprising that a town founded on the basis of a good religious omen would have a lot of temples and I was on my way up the mountain Doi Suthep to visit the most venerated of them all, Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep......"


http://www.bangkokpost.com/en/011205_Ho ... hori52.php[url][/url]