31 Jan: Doi Suthep
The temple of Doi Suthep is up in the mountain, at the end of a
windy road, north of Chiang Mai. The temple is
accessible
via
306
steps
bordered by a
naga
balustrade
(snake). One of
the most
striking
elements
of
the
temple
complex is
the
golden
chedi, but
unfortunately
its
beauty
was
masked
by
scaffolding
due to
renovation
work.
Then a
few
kilometres
further
up
the mountain
to the
royal
family's
winter
residence,
Bhubing
Palace.
There are
a
series of
royal
residences and
guesthouses in
beautifully designed
gardens.
The
flowers are
the
same
as our European
gardens,
with the
exception
of large
poinsettia
(resembling
trees
rather
than
plants)
and
giant
bamboo.
The
temple of
Doi Suthep is up in the mountain, at the end
of a
windy road, north
of Chiang Mai. The
temple is
accessible
via 306
steps
bordered
by a naga
balustrade
(snake). One of
the most
striking
elements
of
the
temple
complex is
the
golden
chedi, but
unfortunately
it's
beauty was
masked
by
scaffolding
due to
renovation
work.
Then a
few
kilometres
further
up
the
mountain
to
the
royal
family's
winter
residence,
Bhubing
Palace.
There are
a
series of
royal
residences and
guesthouses in
beautifully
designed gardens.
The flowers
are
the same
as
our
European
gardens,
with the
exception
of large
poinsettia
(resembling
trees
rather
than
plants)
and
giant
bamboo.
The
taxi driver
then
tried
to
cancel
the
visit to
the
tribal
village
arguing
that the
access road was
too
bad
for the
car.
It
was
a mere 2
kms
down
a tarmac
road! We
insisted
on
going, so
he
took
us.
There
we saw
children
and
women
in
tradition
Hmong
hill
tribe
costumes selling
souvenirs. In fact the
village is one
big
colourful
market
selling
Thai
silks,
bags,
clothes,
costumes
and
hats.
We
were a
bit
disappointed
to
find
cast iron
roofed
shacks
rather
than
more
traditional
dwellings!
The
taxi
driver then invented an
excuse to return
urgently to Chiang
Mai,
so
our trip to Lake
Tao
was
abandoned...
We told
him
we'd only pay him
partially if he
didn't
complete the
itinerary,
but
this
didn't deter
him.
The
girls were already tired
so it wasn't a big
loss
to return to the
guesthouse a bit earlier
and
spend the rest of
the
afternoon around the
pool.
Jenny
took
advantage of
the freed
up
time to
have her
first Thai
massage.
 |
 |
 |
| Doi Suthep |
Bhubing Palace
gardens |
Tradition costumes for
sale
in
Hmong
village |
1 Feb: Chiang Mai Zoo
Today we went to the zoo! Chiang Mai zoo is huge. There's a
monorail and a bus service within the zoo, but
we
walked
our
way
round
in order
to
see
all
the animals.
What's so
amazing
about
this
zoo
is
that
you can feed and
literally touch
many
of
the animals,
for example
giraffes,
hippos,
ostriches,
monkeys,
emu,
snakes
and
crocodiles.
Something
we
could never
experience
in Europe. We
saw 2
pandas
and
koalas
and a
seal
show and a
parrot
show. We
spent almost
7
hours in
the zoo! It
was
great
fun!
We then took a sort of open air taxi van to the centre of
Chiang Mai to the Sunday Market. Two of the
city's main streets are
closed to traffic to
make room for the
market. It's huge and
not
only for
tourists;
Thai
people come as far
as
Bangkok to buy stuff
here. We ate Thai food
from the market around
the temples and
enjoyed
wandering from
stall to
stall. We
also
reserved
an
excursion
for the
next
day.
 |
 |
 |
| A hippo being
feed with carrots by the public - you
could touch his tusks if
you were stupid
enough! |
Gaelle and the
giraffes |
Meeting the
parrots after the show |
 |
 |
 |
| Panda in
Chiang Mai zoo |
A chedi by
night at Chiang Mai Sunday market |
Sunday market
in Chiang Mai |
2 Feb: Tribal excursion
We
were picked up at 8:30 by a minibus for
an excursion to visit 5
tribal villages plus
the
caves in Chiang Dao.
The
tribes are
not as you
would
expect from
Thailand
but Myanmar and
Nepal, and certain
were
refugees. The most
impressive village was
the
Karen long
neck
tribal
village
where girls
from
the age of
5 put
rings
of bronze
around
their
necks,
increasing
the
length
regularly
until
they
have
between
25 and
30
rings of
bronze
around
their
necks.
What's
mind-boggling is
that
they actually keep
the
rings around
their
necks
all
the
time; they
sleep and
shower
with
them
and
they're even
buried with
them.
The
Chiang Dao caves are limestone caves
with over 16 kms of galleries.
The illuminated
gallery
for day-trippers is only 350 metres long and
is decorated
sporadically with B
uddhas. There
are
stalactites,
but
nothing
particularly
impressive
compared to local caves
in France.
There
are giant
carp and
cat
fish
in a
river
around
the
cave
entrance
which amused
the
kids.
 |
 |
 |
|
Palong tribal head dress |
Carp around Chiang Dao
caves |
Giraffe women
(long neck Karen tribe) |
3 Feb: River Maethang
Another excursion today with a fun packed programme: an elephant
ride, a trek to a waterfall, white water
rafting and bamboo rafting.
Unpleasant surprise when the guesthouse owner made it clear that
he was not happy that we had reserved our
excursions directly, rather
than passing via
the guesthouse...
But
when you're travelling
for 6
months it's
worth
shopping around
and when
you can pay,
depending on
the
excursion, between a half to
two-thirds of
the
price,
it's
certainly
justified.
We had a fun elephant ride with François on the elephant's
neck and the 3 girls on the seat on its back.
The elephant trainer
walked in front and we
learnt some Thai
elephant commands to
direct
our
elephant. It
was
fun! Next we did a short
trek
(3/4 of an
hour
there
and
back) through
the forest to a
waterfall where we could
take
a dip
before
driving to
the Maethang
river for
some white water
rafting. There
were
several
rapids on
the
way down and the girls
thoroughly
enjoyed
it.
So did we!
Something
we
could never do in
France
with the
kids at
their
age. And to
finish the day off we did
a
bit of
bamboo rafting, with
François directing the
raft before the journey
home.
 |
 |
| Elephant
riding |
Waterfall on
trek |
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| 
