We thought that when we arrived to Chiang Mai we would book a “trekking” tour out to the forest, where they would take us to the national park to hike, or to see elephants, or to raft down a river on bamboo. But then we were just not that excited about spending $100+ to be on a guided tour all day, so we asked around for suggestions. Both our host at Top Garden and the folks at Cat House across the street said look, just rent a scooter and go up to Doi Suthep–the national park/mountain/temple just 30 min outside of Chiang Mai. We had not planned to rent a scooter in Thailand, even though we had on our trip to Lecce, Italy and Corfu, Greece but they assured us we would be fine and it was super easy. And only $6/day to rent..
After renting from a sweet guy named Anh (Marble motorbike rental by the Thapae Gate) we were off on our deliciously sweet ride to the forest, fresh air filling our lungs (after filling them with exhaust from Chiang Mai traffic). The first stop was Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, supposedly chosen as a site for a royal temple because a white elephant trumpeted 3 times and lay down, refusing to go any farther. There’s a monument to that white elephant, as well as some cool shrines. And lots of tourists. 30 baht for foreigners to enter.
This Naga (snake that protects the Buddha) is 309 steps long
A little girl pointing to the durian tree, a super smelly fruit we haven’t tried yet
After the temple, we had some more khao soi (curry noodles) and spicy sausage at a street stand and to wait out the drizzle that had just come, we had coffee by where we had parked the scooter. We kept going up the mountain, and after the royal palace (which we skipped) we turned left at the fork to go to the Hmong village. It was full of stalls selling beautiful hand crafted textiles, and at the end we paid 10 baht each to go into the Doi Pui Waterfall Garden. There were monks at the waterfall, and beautiful gardens.
Chickens and roosters ate lunch with us
View of the Hmong village
It was time to head home. On the way back down we saw a sign for Wat Pha Lat, and on a whim decided to stop. There was a big shrine with a white Buddha in it that we thought was the temple, but as we were sitting in its quietness, three tour vans drove down a little hill next to it and we realized it was further down. We decided to go and oh we were so lucky — it was the most beautiful Wat we have seen…so many nooks and crannies and statues tucked in the trees!
We met Sone, a novice from Burma studying at a Buddhist university in Chiang Mai, who talked to us for a long time and taught us many things. Like how the orange robes are considered formal, for city monks, but monks who live in nature wear browns and darker colors so they don’t make the birds call out when they mediate. And that the monks at Wat Pha Lat wear dark red–the color of Burmese monks–because Chiang Mai used to be ruled by Burma and so they honor that tradition. He was wearing orange because he had just walked the 2km path through the forest to town to go to class, and the university encourages students to wear formal clothes–orange–to school. He’s 19–when he is 20 he can be ordained as a monk instead of a novice. He said he couldn’t take a selfie because it wouldn’t be very monk-ly, but he let us take one with him in it. 😉
Here are some pics of what we thought was Wat Pha Lat but wasn’t, just by the road:
We stopped at a market on the way back into the city where a guy told us to eat on the 4th floor of Maya, which was a shopping mall. So we needed up eating at a food court which was kind of random, but reminded us of the ubiquitous malls of Singapore which we loved. We went to bed tired and windswept!
Maps of Doi Suthep
This is how cute we look but actually cuter in real life cause this picture isn’t so great but we are also the dorkiest people ever