We woke a little later to the same breakfast but this time Pekster
and I decided to share as the portion is rather large. The hotel arranged the
taxi for us to visit the kings summer palace up the hill and Doi Suthep temple
in the hills. We had to leave our dear deviljoe behind due as she wasn’t well,
but from what I heard later, she seemed to have had a pretty relaxing day
anyway. So I guess anyway you decide to spend your time, Chiang Mai is just the
best wind-down place.
The 3 of us left around 11am. The temple and the palace is
at the top of the hill and the road is something like going up Cameron’s on the
old road. Winding and winding and winding like the pocket watch on the white
rabbit.By the time we reached the summer place, there was no way I could stand
straight without the nausea and after a painful spill-my-guts session, we
thankfully found me a little Medicare at the palace. The nurse spoke perfect English
and gave me some anti-nausea tablet and some sort of smelling salts-liquid. She
warned me about getting sleepy but I just needed the spinning to stop.
Took me an hour and 5 chicken balls later to actually feel
like the world wasn’t going to somehow collapse around me. Sigh.
The palace is a great place! It’s cold, its huge with
flowers of all kinds of colours and shapes complete with a green house, log
cabin, cottages, a singing water reservoir, formal and informal landscaping and
the main palace(which sadly, was under renovation) and the highlight of the day-
Giant bamboo trees about 20 feet tall. We took tons of pictures of the flowers,
I plan to buy a suit with the color combinations, yeay! Pekster was mistaken as a Thai girl a gazillion times,
it would have been cool if she was able to reply the people in their own
language!
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| Dayang dayang sekalian |
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| Beauty's true colors? |
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| XXL Roses |
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| Chilling Beneath Giant Bamboos |
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| We will NOT climb this tree! |
From the palace, we came down to the Doi Suthep temple,
complete with an elevator. The temple has about 600 steps going up but you can
choose to pay 20 baht for the “elevator” and 30 baht tourism fee for
foreigners. The stupa is in the middle of the temple grounds, and is made of
gold and there are statues of Buddha made with jade but apart from that, I would
rather sit at Thean Hou any day.
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| Proud that these 2 stood fearlessly so high over the city |
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| 600 steps up Doi Suthep Temple |
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| Jade and Gold |
Took us only about an hour to linger about the
temple and we then drove down to a small waterfall off the road back to the
city. It was quiet at the waterfall, there were only a couple of local families
and bunches of teenagers hanging about. Nothing much to shout about as have
similar falls right here in Malaysia. There was ONE difference though. As you
enter the waterfall area, there are stalls selling picnic foodstuff, stalls like
ones selling our pisang goreng. But look closer! Its all roaches and maggots
for sale –man, picnic is defined differently
for me. Urgh.
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| Kids will be kids.. |
As we got back to the hotel, and paid our driver 900 baht
for the day, diplodocus and pekster hopped onto the hotel bicycles and off they
cycled to the café nearby for coffee. Unfortunately Deviljoe, who is expert ATV
rider, doesn’t ride a bicycle, so we had a nice walk instead. We enjoyed the
food at the Fern Forest Café, its one of the mushrooming coffee houses around
the old city.
We then got another taxi to the Sompet market to try the local
food there. Tom yum and omelet and then an (amazing!) Foot massage for 200 baht.--200
baht for an hour, I’m telling ya, it’s a steal!—
This last night we had the best sleep and rest. Time to head
back to the Malaysian Weather tomorrow. Not sure which I miss more of home,
Shimbu or Nasi Lemak..
Note: If you are travelling to CM, do try the Gac fruit if it’s
in season. This fruit is only available in Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar and is
supposed as the Fruit from Heaven..
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| Moat around the Old City |
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