Up at 9m and ready for the day. Today we decided we’d go to Doi Suthep a temple up on Suthep mountain range that overlooks all of Chiang Mai. Now, just how to actually get there. We headed to a tourist office to see if they could shed some light on the plan. They told us it would cost 3000 baht (nearly €70) and we’d have to hire a private taxi. I knew that couldn’t be right. We headed on and stopped into a little restaurant for breakfast, ya know the kinda place that looks like it would be closed instantly for a health hazard anywhere else. It was delicious. I had noodle soup with chicken and a Thai iced coffee.
We then decided to ask a few tourists how to get to Doi Suthep, we had much better luck this time, we were told we could get a bus there for 50bt (€1) we just had to find the bus stop… we stopped a tuktuk driver who took us to the bus stop for another 50bt. We finally arrived at a corner where a songthaew (passenger truck) was parked up with a small sign saying it was going to Doi Suthep, hooray! Unfortunately, we had to wait until the entire truck was full, this took about 30min waiting around for other tourists to join.
Finally we were off, 10 of us packed into the back of a small truck bed. We drove through the city and into the foothills and then began our accent up the mountain, the windy, windy accent. I was not feeling good, it was all i could do to keep my lunch inside instead of outside. I hung my head out the side of the truck, a little better, just hold on… after 30min of nauseous hell we finally arrived at a huge ‘parking lot’ with about 100 other songthaews. With my head and stomach swimming, I jumped out of the truck and headed for the nearest seat I could find, which was the curb. Rebecca managed to pull me over to the other side of the street were there were some benches. I caught my breath and calmed my head.
Our goal was to visit the temple at the top of some 306 stairs, with my current situation I didn’t think I could handle that so I was strongly considering taking the small tram that was available up. I decided to chance the stairs, and was glad I did! First of all, 306 stairs only sounds like a lot, it’s not really. And the staircase was beautiful! It had cascading dragon’s all the way down, and little girls posing in traditional dress for photos (for money of course). An easy climb overall and even helped me gain my composure even more.
Once at the top however, we were far from impressed. The Wat, was more touristy than any we’d been to before (except for maybe the Grand Palace). It was beautiful, but the crowds made it a little unbearable. After a quick walk around and iced coffee we decided we’d opt to walk down the mountain instead of drive (and risk more sickness!) we had read about a trail that led down the mountain but could even find our way out of the temple grounds! We happened upon two german women coming up some stairs and looking rather tired, as if they’d been hiking, and indeed they had. One of the women, Bridgit, pointed us in the right direction and even gave us some further directions to find the ‘actual’ hiking trail.
Down we went! We passed through a monastery just below the Wat and reached our first Y in the road, we chose left, we were wrong, luckily a monk led us in the right direction. On we went down and down, until we reached the ‘mean looking dogs’ that Bridgit warned us about. We slowly passed them and then down onto the main road for a stretch, until we reached what looked like a ‘garbage dump’ at a hairpin turn in the road. This was a hard direction to follow, as there were many turns and everywhere looked like a garbage dump. This one looked more like a dump than the others, but we couldn’t find a trail anywhere, just a drop off into the jungle. We checked twice and were just about to give up when I finally spotted a ‘path’ no wider than a foot leading straight over the edge. We decided to give it a go, pretty much rock-climbing down the edge of the mountain. However once we reached the bottom the trail evened out and became more defined (thank god, cause I don’t know if we could have gotten back up!).
We decided walking sticks were in order. I found a great bamboo one and this really helped with the rocky footing. We walked and walked, for probably about 2 hours when we heard a waterfall where we stopped for a breather and so the mosquitos could have lunch. It was near a main road, which we crossed and once again had to find a ‘trail’ which we eventually found a small dirt path similar to the first, down a very steep slippery slope, but easier this time with our walking sticks. Not far down the trail, the jungle cleared and before was was the most beautiful temple. The temple is called Wat Phalad, also known as the Hermit Temple. I could see why, there was no one there except for a few monks, it was incredibly peaceful, everything I imagine a temple should be and it was shrouded in nature with a waterfall running through the middle. Stunning really. We stayed here for a while, we reluctantly left only for the thought of not knowing how much longer we were hiking and that we had limited sun.
We began the trail again, this time much easier and more defined. We passed sacred trees and beautiful orchids on our trek down. Eventually the dirt trail turned into asphalt and we were on a road again. We saw signs for the Chiang Mai Zoo, so we knew we were close to civilisation again. We eventually found ourself within the ground so Chiang Mai university were a songthaew picked us up and took us back to the old city. When we arrived at our street, the weekend walking street market was going on, after picking up a few things to eat at the market it was back to the hotel to wash the jungle off of us and then out for a very well earned foot massage.
This was our last night in Chiang Mai, and we were sad to see it go but looking forward to getting down to the island for some beach and sun!
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