Doi Suthep temple; 15 & 309

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Traveled alot yesterday so woke up late in the morning. took the hotel ABF in the lobby and headed towards tour counter where the lady told us that we were too late for the full day tour, so we booked half day tour to Doi suthep temple and hill tribe market.

our tour guide petty picked us up at 1.00 pm from hotel lobby and started picking up group people from different hotels, so it took like 45 minutes gathering whole group and leaving the city.

our first destination was Muang hill tribe market. basically a handicraft market with shops offering different kind of handicrafts. these people were basically originated from china and were settled here from hundreds of years and were living with their own culture and tradition and used to cultivate opium until king of thailand and the government convinced them to stop cultivating this crop. incentives were offered to them and now they are into mainstream tourism as well as doing different businesses too. we were given a briefing from our guide and then we went to different shops and met people there. highlight of this visit for us was a kid who used his trademark smile and style in photographs with us. we enjoyed his style and captured some snaps. green tea, traditional clothings and handicrafts were main items of that market.

gathered again in our van to move to our next destination, the temple.

Doi Suthep temple is 15 km from city center and there are 309 stairs from road to reach there. so everybody was excited to reach there as that was preference number 1 from tour operators to offer to new tourists.

after reaching the temple our guide paid the entrance (BHT 30 for foreigners) and briefed us about the history of it. statue of white elephant is the first thing you notice after entering the temple. history of white elephant was written there. bells, statues of grand buddha and hindu god ganesh were the prominent aspects of this temple. one can see the ariel view of Chiang mai city from the left side.

overall a value for money tour to these two places and we came back to hotel at 5.

after having couple of hours rest, we went out to check the sub continent food outlet. took biryani and chicken curry in the dinner.
booked the full day tour for tomorrow having a trek, elephant ride and bamboo rafting in it.

went to see the sunday night bazar just in front of hotel. traditional handicrafts, food and clothing stalls were in abundance. basically a women bazar with very less offerings for men.

good first day towards its end.

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