Sunday in Chiang Mai - Temple (2)

None of us were really too keen on waking up early on Sunday, so we unanimously decided to sleep in. This would have been a brilliant plan, except that I woke up bright and early Sunday mornin' at 7....UGH. So much for sleeping in. Leah, the night before, had said that if she woke up and no one else was awake, that she would pounce on us to wake us up. So, that's exactly what I did. I admit, it was not the kindest thing for me to do, and certainly not the brightest, but it sounded good to my groggy mind. Hee hee. So, off my little self went to leap onto Leah. Excitement isn't the word for the emotion conveyed there. Neither was happiness the emotion that Stephanie and Mike evoked when I woke them too.....I decided to leave everyone alone. Luckily, I had an accomplice to my aloneness. Erin had stirred as well, and we decided to run to 7-11 to buy everyone breakfast. It was limited options, so we opted for scrambled eggs and yoghurt. Let's just say I was forgiven for waking everyone up.... :)

It was just an hour or so before everyone else stirred, and we all got cleaned up and ready to face the day. We walked down and got iced mocha(a new favorite treat) from a nice man who we then nicknamed "The Mocha Man". It goes without saying that every day after this that we were in Chiang Mai, "The Mocha Man" got a visit from 5 farangs(foreigners). It was around 

the table at the Mocha Man's that we decided we needed something to do....Nothing had been decided on, and then someone mentioned the Temple.  Doi Suithep Temple was something that interested all of us, and it didn't take long to reach a conclusion that included going to the temple. We soon went out to the street to hail a tuk tuk to take us. Didn't take too long to get one who would take us. It was a steep uphill climb up the windy mountain road to get there, and my face was practically green when we got there, but we got there nonetheless. 

But in all honesty, I needed a minute to get my composure. 

We saw a set of steps to our left, and followed the crowd ascending them. Once up that small flight of stairs, we saw so many people! This was a

popular place. It is known for the large set of stairs you have to go up to reach the actual wat/temple. We soon spotted the stairs, and decided to take a few pictures at the bottom. The railing at the bottom of the stairs is made to look like the head of a dragon, and the railing all the way up is

its body. It's quite long. Once we finally reached the top, we were breathing a little harder.....I mean, achem....I was fine. Everyone else was struggling.... ;p

We started up the small set of stairs that was the

"entrance" to the wat. Everyone else(the Thais) were just walking on up and through. They stopped us, though, and told us we had to 

have a ticket. Pretty much, we gathered

 they stop all foreigners and make them pay. We weren't too thrilled about this, but we were eager to see it, so we shoveled out the 20 baht(I know, we're stingy). Once up there though, we forgot all about the money. It was beautiful! It's so inspiring to see the dedication of the buddhists. They are so diligent with their worship. There were monks everywhere, and one was even blessing anyone and everyone. Stephanie and I considered it, mostly because: how cool would it be to be blessed in Thailand by a Buddhist monk? That was also the reason we didn't do it. I didn't want to offend anyone because I know it wouldn't mean the same thing to me as it does to them. 

The view was beautiful from the top of

the temple, unfortunately, it was a bit smoggy, so the camera had a hard time picking up the images. Sorry if they're not too clear. It was beautiful though. We had such a good time looking at the view. Before we headed down, a couple people got fruit for the road. 

Mike decided on some mango. It looked pretty refreshing, except when he bit into it, it was NOT mango. I was seriously curious as to what it could possibly be or what was wrong with it, so I tasted it. Why must I insist on being curious? Turns out, it was picked mango. It tasted just like a pickle. Too weird. Anywho, on the way down, Mike and I had fun throwing them at road signs :p