Trip to Doi Suthep, Chiang Mai

So it was officially day two in Chiang Mai and Leanne was completely out of her head mad at me for letting her sleep until the afternoon. Hey, when the body is tired, you have to let it rest. Right, Mom? I got to lounge by Lucinda's pool anyway, so I was happy. Plus I was more than halfway through Love in the Time of Cholera, so I was more than glad to get a few moments in to read. What a great book: review to follow, as you'd expect.

Leanne had read about this temple atop a high mountain, which turned out to be a twelve-kilometre hike from where I took this picture:




When the man who drove one of these trucks (who you'll see later) made a ridiculous offer to us to take us up for something like twenty dollars, Leanne and I contemplated a walk up instead. After about ten minutes of second gear climbing up this "hill", I was thanking my lucky stars that we opted to wait a bit until more tourists also wanted to see the city from afar. Here we are at the base of the stairs (there's about 200 or 300 of them, all beautifully decorated and adorned with dragons):

And this is our close-up right up at the top:

A little reverse racism (the Thai people, from what I saw, rarely have to pay for any temple excursion. Makes sense: I don't think we paid for our audience with the Pope either.) Still, could the signage be and more discriminatory? No, no it couldn't.

And here's yours truly, ringing a bell at the top of the mountain. I was thinking very, very profound things and that sucker was very loud, let me tell you.

Looking down from the top of Doi Suthep was quite an amazing view.

Ah yes, and who could forget the street food? Odd...here in Korea, they sell what we consider to be cattle corn as regular corn in the grocery stores. But in Thailand, it was the sweet regular stuff on a stick, barbecued and plopped into a cup for our convenience. De-lish!

These were the dragons flanking the top and bottom of the staircase...magnificent. This thing shone like it was made of gold. Perhaps it was.

Aha! First elephant of the day. This is a close up of an elephant whose partner and him guard the doors to the large temple. To the right was the huge bell I donged, for lack of a better verb. "Rang" doesn't quite do that bell justice.


Buddhists typically present lotus flowers as a gift to the Buddha, along with incense.

This gorgeous peak in the centre of the temple area was being worked on. It's remarkable that even the scaffolding is gold to match the place and that even in the midst of construction, it is still almost daunting in its beauty.

Leanne and I asked to buy one of these hearts on bells for a donation to the temple. Unfortunately, they'd all been sold (and hopefully enough money raised, perhaps for that gold thing to be erected or fixed), so I snapped a shot of Jen and Jen from Canada, 2009.

This painting caught my eye, placed oddly inside the snack shoppe of all places. I guess the older monk is teacher the younger monk something or other as the other monks watch?...and my camera got a grainy snapshot of it...I think it's beautiful.

And this is the beloved Buddha that I was accustomed to seeing prior to my visit to Thailand. I thought Buddha was fat and jolly...my Santa Claus impressions were put to rest right quickly though. Buddha was a monk, if nothing else, THE monk, actually. And I've never seen a fat monk! Nevertheless, this little guy was adorable: his picture begged to be taken.


Here's Leanne taking a picture of Chiang Mai. I love seeing a city from up high
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This is a close up shot of yet another elephant we saw that day. I think you could put incense in that little silver bin and offer up some prayer. Who knows...I'm not exactly the reigning expert on all things Thai: I just went there.

Thai Sasso? We saw so many orange tabbies, bringing back so many fond memories of our little feline. And in case you are wondering, yes, he spoke with a Russian accent even in Thailand. Seems a bit odd, but there's no messing with the voice.

Candid monk shot. They're so ethereal in their...um, monk outfits? I'm sure they have an official name, but seriously, don't they almost look angelic? They're so peaceful and devoted. We saw one monk walking down the streets of dirty Bangkok (I'll introduce you to her later), wearing NO SHOES! Bare feet! It was excruciating.

Here is the man I told you about. He RAN almost all the way up this hill after organizing our trip up there. On our way back down, we picked him up, he clung to the back (there was plenty of room IN the truck, but I think he preferred the railing), smiling, for the whole twenty-minute ride.

After our first roti in Thailand (best thing ever), we headed back to the night market for some dinner to celebrate. Here some traditional Thai performers are doing their thing for an audience that isn't really paying much attention. Below, where we ate. They had fresh fish and lobster tanks...but we were over-served and I can't recall what we had for dinner ;) Here I am in what would become The Infamous Pink Pashmina.