Doi Suthep Temple and more of Chiang Mai

  Chiang Mai, Thailand
Sunday, March 19, 2006

Hello Everyone,

We ended up staying another 5 days in Chiang Mai after returning from the Elephant Park. It's just one of those cities you can get caught up in and end up staying longer than you planned.

We spent some days just wandering around the city. We took advantage of all the great restaurants here and the great variety of cuisine offered.



We went up to a temple called Doi Suthep. It is situated on a small mountain on the back side of the city. On a clear day you can get a great view of Chiang Mai. Unfortunately we didn't get one of those days. You couldn't even see that a city existed down below us. The area was very nice though and had many gold temples and religious buildings. There were many places where locals were praying.



It is a nice tranquil place to get away from the bustle of the city. They have rows of heavy bronze bells that the monks ring at certain times of the day. You can walk up to the temples, it's about 300 steep steps up. Or you can take the short cable car ride to the top. At the bottom of the mountain there are many vendors selling the usual tourist junk. There is also a jade factory that we stopped in. There were some beautifully carved jade pieces.



It was really sad to see an elephant being touted around the area by it's owner. Especially after just coming from the elephant park. He was hooking in the head to get it to move.



We really enjoyed our time in Chiang Mai. We hated to leave our hotel. We got very comfortable there and it felt like home away from home. The staff were so kind to us. We even befriended a tuk tuk driver out front. We used him many times while we were there. We got to know is wife too. He would greet us each time we came out of the hotel and ask if we would like to go somewhere. He spent entire days with us sometimes for a very reasonable price.

Oh my goodness, if you can believe it, we are heading back to Bangkok again! Only so we can get a cheap flight to somewhere else.