January 7th: Visit to Doi Sutep (Temple)…Ratchapreuk-Royal Garden…Red Cross Winter Festival

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Today I woke up at 0630 AM and felt wide awake! I was ready to go and start the day because in American time it would be 0630 at night. After waking up and putting on my new flowy Thai pants, I went down and ate breakfast which was fried chicken, sticky rice, and snowballs (dumplings with pork and custard in them, they were very good!) The fried chicken may have been the best I have ever had! We left with our buddies after breakfast and took the long winding road to the temple. At the top of the mountain was the temple and we had to climb over 300 stairs to get to the top!! It was exhausting, and I do not think my Thai buddies liked it very much, but we eventually got to the top. It was interesting to see little children dressed up in costumes sitting on the stairs and offering to take pictures with the tourists for money. As I observed though they did a pretty good business and people really enjoyed taking pictures with them as they would do different things like kiss people on the cheek. I was not a fan of this kind of earning money, but I found it sad that the children were being used in this kind of way. A lot of prayer went into entering this temple because the idea of going to a worship center of another god other than the true God was difficult. Although I know it is part of their culture and I did enjoy the beauty of the temple, it was difficult for me to forget the fact that this was a place where a lot of people in Thailand come to see and worship a false god. I prayed that the Lord would release His Spirit of truth in that place and made sure I prayed the armor of God around myself before going in. All went well and it was a good experience overall as it seemed to be more of a tourist attraction than a place of worship. My buddies made me feel comfortable and explaining things about what the Thai people believe and did not try to get me to do anything I did not want to do. I got a waffle while I was at the temple and it was delicious! After the temple we went to the Asian food court where I got some spicy beef and noodle dish. I also tried many different foods from different vendors as some of the Thai buddies kept bringing up food to try including mango sticky rice, sweet potato with coconut, an ice mixture with coconut syrup, and some fried bananas. The Thai buddies were all being so sweet and kept bringing us different things to try but we were all so full! After the food court we went to the Royal Gardens. We took the tram car around and it was very hot! I hit a wall of exhaustion at the Royal Gardens and I felt really bad for my Thai buddies because I could tell they were so tired too. It was very hot and although the flowers were pretty it was hard to focus on anything but getting sleep. My Thai buddies were so respectful though and did mention very much that they were tired. They simply dealt with the heat and exhaustion and carried on still making sure I had everything I needed. If we were in a group of American students in this same situation I have a feeling there would have been a lot of complaining and grumbling about the weather and the tiredness. I appreciated their stamina and it made me want to push past the way I felt. After the gardens we went back to the college and ate dinner which was fried eggs, chicken stir fry, and papaya. I took a quick nap and then we were off again to the Red Cross Winter Festival. Luckily again I got a burst of energy at night and we had fun playing games and walking around the festival. We went on one amusement ride while we were there and it was so much fun!! We laughed a lot. The Festival again was very crowded and pretty overwhelming and smelled like a lot of smoke, but I felt fine and the noise wasn’t as bad as it could have been because I couldn’t understand anything they were saying! Overall, another great and exhausting day in Chiang Mai.

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