Chiang Mai: OUR own day tour to Doi Suthep Mountain on 9/26/13.

· Had known we wanted to go on our own the next day to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep (DS for the purposes of the blog), one of the north’s most sacred temples, located 16kms NW of CM and first established in 1383; the wat is on a mountain peak, also called DS at an elevation of 1676 meters

· The DS mountain is easily visibly from anywhere in CM and named after a hermit, Sudervawho (if I could read my writing from my hastily scribbled notes, that is) who lived on the mountain slopes of DS for many years.

· Had read that the cheapest way to get to DS mountain and to see the wat was to go across the street from Chang Pauk Gate in CM where songthaews galore are all lined up going to different areas out of the city; we were instructed by the man in charge to sit on the bench until there were 10 people all wanting to go to DS; that way we’d each pay 30thb or $1 one way; got pretty tiring waiting so, after a half hour or so, I began approaching other foreigners walking by to see if they too wanted to go to DS; finally the head honcho said we were able to leave with just 9 people, so we were off on another adventure.

· Another very windy road up to DS and the wat but much closer than DI to CM so didn’t take long; at the end of the winding road was a long flight of 306 steps, lined by ceramic tailed naga or magical serpents leading up to the wat.

· I will leave you to see the beauty of it through the pictures below.

· From the outset that day, we knew we wanted to go, also via a songthaew, further up DS Mountain to see the Winter Palace aka Phra Tamnak Phu Ping and the Hmong Hill Tribe Village called Ban Doi Pui.

· We didn’t really want to wait at each place along the way, i.e. the DS Wat, then the Winter Palace and then the Hmong Village and finally a trip down the mountain back to CM, for people wanting to go at the same time to the same place we wanted in a songthaew with each stop or trip except the return to CM being 30thb each. After having our full of the wat at DS and while waiting for a songthaew to take us on our next leg up the mountain, we saw 2 women who had been in the same songthaew with us from CM to the wat. I told them our plans and asked if they’d like to join us on the rest of our journey up the mountain. They figured they’d come this far so why not go all the way to the top and see the Winter Palace and Hmong Tribal Village too?

· Steven and I were able to negotiate a price of 170thb each with a driver to take the four of us to each place, wait an hour at each and then drive us to back to where we wanted to be dropped off back in CM. All seemed well and fine then!

· The 2 about 40ish year old women on our adventure with us were Ingrid from Slovakia and Tania from the Lapland area of Finland; they both met while working together in London; Ingrid had quit her job to leave on a 6 month trip figuring you only live once; Tania, who was going only part of the way with Ingrid, had a job to go back to but had given up her flat in London and thus had no home to go back to! We had a blast with both of them the entire day and I think they did with us too. Too bad we were going our separate ways after our day together discovering DS because we and they laughed so hard so often.

· When we got to the Hmong village of Ban Doi Pui, we knew we had one hour to look around so Ingrid and Tania went one way and Steven and I puttered about looking at the markets and then paid a few baht to see a beautiful waterfall and garden and then met up again at the songthaew for the next leg to the Winter Palace, only 4 kms up the mountain.

· There was a strict dress code in force at the palace so Steven had to rent some one size fits all pants and put them on over his shorts. It made for a perfect photo op! I was wearing one of my skorts so it met their stamp of approval when I tugged it down so it almost met my knees.

· The Winter Palace is only open to visitors when the royal family is not in residence; luckily for us, they were not there so we were able to walk around the gardens.

· We stuck together there as it was pouring cats and dogs and the driver kindly lent the four of us his one umbrella which we took turns sharing as we wandered around gazing at the gorgeous gardens.

· Ingrid and Tania were both very happy with our negotiating skills, choosing to remain mute during the whole process especially when we were on our back to CM and the driver all of a sudden stopped on the side of the road after we’d walked around both the Winter Palace and the Hmong village; he came to the back of the songthaew to talk with us and trying to jack up the price he and we had previously set and agreed to. I had heard that this was not an uncommon practice and we repeatedly said to him 170, 170 and showed him where Steven had written it down in his little blue book. The two of them had gone back and forth on the price earlier with both Steven and the driver writing down a price before agreeing to the 170thb price so he knew we were going to stick to that agreed upon price period. Ingrid and Tania just laughed at us and with us when that little skirmish was over.

· Steven and I both remember one of them laughingly saying at some point during the day, “Oh, here we thought you were just both these nice, normal Americans!”

· What a fun, fun day we had. Here are some photos I hope you’ll enjoy so you can share the experiences vicariously through us.

Walking to get the songthaew from our guesthouse: we passed the moat and city wall countless times.

I was just a tad intrigued with the flowers, ya think!

On our way to get the songthaew, we happened on this wat: Wat Chiang Yuen. We thought it was beautiful even though it was not one of the ones that I had listed we should see from reading the guidebooks. Go figure.