Miller round the world Day 15

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Up at 7. Breakfast at the hotel, an expansive and quite delicious buffet. On the buses and off to the area's most important buddhist temple, Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep. This is an hour's drive outside the city halfway up a steep mountain. The temple complex is breathtaking. There are many separate shrines each with exquisite statuary. Gold is everywhere, gleaming in the bright sun. The temple is very busy with a combination of worshippers and tourists. In the main temple, monks in orange robes bestow blessings and people are lighting candles and praying. Several people are carrying candles, incense and flowers clockwise around the perimeter of the temple, a ritual that must be completed three times. I take dozens of photos; there is so much beauty here. There are many small shops as well and Vi enjoys bargaining the vendors down for a few items.

Back to the city by bus and lunch at a local restaurant. It is another mammoth buffet with easily a hundred items. The choose-your-own soup is a big hit. Some of the dishes are quite spicy. The coffee is terrible.
 
The afternoon excursion is to a hot spring about 45 minutes out of town. By the time we get there, it is very hot and humid. Violet opts for a foot massage over soaking in the pool, worried about her ear. I explore the area. There is a canal of warm water that snakes through a beautiful forested park. There are many people and families there. Some bathe their feet in the water, which gets increasingly hot as you progress down the path that follows the canal. Eventually you reach the geysers that are the source.  Superheated water is shooting out of the ground non-stop. In the first pool where the water is collected, people are dropping in eggs, which cook in a couple of minutes. There's a distinct smell of sulphur. I return to see how Vi is doing. Just as a reach the roofed area where she is receiving her massage, the heavens open and a torrential downpour ensues. We wait it out while the masseuse (male) finishes. It's still raining as we make our way back to the bus but not too hard. We stop at some shops along the way and Vi buys a few items.

About an hour's rest before dinners at the hotel. You guessed it--it's a buffet. Many really excellent Thai dishes. Highlights are the chicken coconut milk soup, the mini pork ribs, deep-fried shrimp balls on sugar cane, and for dessert jasmine/rice ice cream, watermelon sorbet and wasabi ice cream. We also enjoy the fresh jack fruit, which I have never had before.

After supper we explore the night market, which magically appears on the street about 6 pm and continues to midnight. This is a ramshackle collection of little carts that turn into stalls selling a wide variety of goods. Bargaining is a given; if you don't get the price down by 50%, you lose. Vi is already a master bargainer and negotiates a great package deal at one booth.
  
We do laundry in our room and then retire after another very full day.  

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