Today we headed off to Chiang Mai in the Northern part of Thailand. This meant another early start to our day. The restaurant opened for breakfast at 0630, we were there at 0628, and were the first customers! That was a first for us, that I hope won’t be repeated.
We checked out and our guide and driver took us to the airport, a trip that took 90 minutes when we arrived was completed in 35 minutes this morning. Today we wouldn’t have the luxury of a lounge to wait in as we were travelling in economy. The sacrifices we have to make sometimes :-).
Despite turning right as we boarded the aircraft AND walking almost to the back of the plane to find our seats, we managed to survive the one hour trip.
We were met on our arrival by our guide, this time here name was Bammie, the last guide was Boomie! We were not able to check into the hotel until 3PM, mainly due to the fact the hotel was busy in absorbing guests that had been evacuated from other properties.
We drove to a temple located 3300ft above the city, with a 300 step climb from the street to the temple itself.
Looking down the 300 Stairs
Fortunately there was also a funicular railway that could take us there if we wanted. We wanted!
Once at the top we were greeted by many buildings, which is typical of the temples we had visited previously in Thailand. I was expecting a temple to be just that, a single building.
Below are photos from around the temple grounds.
In Thailand religions peacefully co-exist, below is a shrine with a Hindu Goddess, and below that a shrine with a Chinese Buddha.
We discovered a large moth on the wall, believed to be a Japanese Lunar Moth
The building below has just been renovated and is covered in 24 carat gold leaf.
The top of the building switches to 15Kgs of pure gold for it’s construction, the very top portion is made from crystal glass.
The city of Chiang Mai
From there we headed back to the hotel, it appears that we made a good choice. We are also finding prices here for food and drink is way less than in Bangkok. Tomorrow we are off to the elephant sanctuary for the day!