The first thing builtWat Chiang Man วัดเชียงมั่น

The first thing built

None. This is where the living city started.

Where: Ratchaphakhinai Road, north-east quarter · 18.79356, 98.98938 from OpenStreetMap
Open: Daylight
Cost: Free
Who is dead: None. This is where the living city started.
On: On foot

Mangrai camped here while the city was going up in 1296 and the wat stands on the camp. The elephant chedi at the back is the oldest structure inside the walls.

Two small images are kept in the viharn — a crystal Buddha and a stone one, both older than the city, both brought here from somewhere else. They come out once a year at Songkran.

First stop on the route if you want the chronology; near-last if you want to end somewhere calm.

What is said to be there

The crystal Buddha and the stone one in the viharn are older than the city and were carried here from somewhere else. They come out once a year, at Songkran, and go back in. The reasoning behind a locked image is not security. An image with that much handling behind it is held to be awake, and what is awake is let out on a schedule, not on demand.

The kind of dead this kind of place holds, in northern reckoning

Making merit here

A tray, in the name of whoever in your family came first to a place and started something.

Tan khan khao — the tray of rice ตานขันข้าว — A tray of food handed to a monk in a named dead person's name. 50–200 ฿ for a tray bought at the wat gate. Made at home it costs what the food costs.
Sweeping กวาดลานวัด — Pick up a broom that is already leaning there and sweep. Nothing.

Wat Chiang Man — Stefan Fussan · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Commons

Yours would be better

Every picture here was taken by someone else for some other reason. Upload yours to Commons under a free licence and the next build of this page will use it, with your name on it.

Sources for this stop

What	Who published it	Note
Things that go bump in the night — Chiang Mai's most haunted	Chiang Mai Citylife
ผี ไม่ได้มีแค่สยองขวัญ เมื่อ 'ผีล้านนา' คือการปกปักรักษา	Lanner	the Lanna split between ผีดี and ผีร้าย, and what เสื้อบ้าน เสื้อเมือง are
คำเรียกผีและความเชื่อเรื่องผีในภาษาไทยถิ่นเหนือ	Veridian E-Journal, Silpakorn University	the northern names for the dead, collected and classified