Panic -- since I can't find my Wat U Mong, Chiangmai photos

http://students.uww.edu/grorudam29/photos%20wat%20umong.htm

http://www.chiangmai1.com/chiang_mai/wat_u_mong.shtml

It's on Suthep Road, not far from Chiangmai University.

Some women friends including Daw May Nyane, Burmese writer and novelist took me there.

The young lady who initiated the trip said -- mistakenly -- "It's named after a Burmese exile -- U Maung" -- and that seemed to recall in my mind that I had read somewhere that Burmese timber traders before World War II in Burma's British Colonial Period had settled in Chiangmai, Thailand (then Siam) and built some wat or chedi (sedi in Burmese).

But Wat U Mong was not built so recently by a Burmese named U Maung -- even though I found the story very charming.

It's a reference to u min hlaing gaung, caves or "gu" which are a feature of Buddhist architecture in Theravada Buddhist countries such as Burma and Thailand.

Daw May Nyane told me the damp/dank caves or tunnels were very like Kyanzithha's U Min in Bagan(formerly transliterated as Pagan) where she had been but I had not.

Wat U Mong was built in the 14th century.

My friends were able to make out "red and green circles" on the faded inner walls. Outside, I saw a computer recreated (?) pattern of the red, green and gold overall pattern -- like a hand-painted wall paper, that had once decorated those sloping walls. It must have been gorgeous and even now packs a punch.

The outside bricks with their filigree of ferns and moss was no less beautiful.

Maybe I took the photographs on my visit with my other camera, the one with film in it. Maybe they were all accidentally erased.

We will see, as I like to say.

Meanwhile, this can act as a memory jogger.

I highly recommend that you visit this very calm place in its lovely forest setting.

Thank you, Friends, for taking me there.

K.M.Kaung