Wat's Up?

We arrived at the train station around 7:30am, which allowed us to take our time to walk into the main parts of town. Only, we got turned around and walked about 30 minutes in the wrong direction. A tuk-tuk drove by and we had him take us into town, he laughed at us a bit.
The main thing that inspired our choice to visit Chiang Mai was a huge enormous gold wat called Wat Phra That Doi Suthep which is situated deep in the jungle filled mountains of the Chiang Mai Province.
Since we had arrived so early we had a chance to grab some breakfast and figure out how long we thought we would be here. We decided a couple of things:
1) today we are going to go to the Wat Doi Suthep 2) we are going to take a Thai cooking class 3) we want to go hiking in the jungle and ride elephants
This was all actually pretty easy to accomplish, but one thing had to be done first. The trekking through the jungle was actually a full-day’s hike and so we would have to stay an extra day. The trouble with that is that we figured for one night and had a flight booked for Phuket Island the next day. So we hired a tuk-tuk to take us up the mountain to the Wat Phra That Doi Suthep (in the rain) and walked around the temple for a little while taking pictures. I knew from our reading that I was not dressed appropriately since I was wearing shorts, but no trouble, I would just rent a sarong. The women wrapped me in the sarong properly and we went barefoot through the gold and marble-floored temple in the pouring rain. We decided NOT to bring our rain gear (even though we knew it would be raining most the time we were there) but I did have a rain poncho. You know, the kind you buy last minute at football games because you forgot to check the weather?? Anyhow, we used the poncho to cover my backpack that was housing both our cameras…so there we were getting soaked and the backpack and cameras staying nice and dry. The hike up to the temple was really neat and the walk down was a little wrenching since all the stairs are angled down so the rain doesn’t accumulate. Makes all stairs really slick.
After our fun trip to the wat we decided to walk around town to find the Thai Airways office. We changed our flight for a small fee and now had one extra day in Chiang Mai.
It ended up being a busy day because as soon as we got back from changing our ticket, we booked our all-day hike for tomorrow and then were picked up for our afternoon cooking class.
The cooking class we had arranged first started a tour of the large market where most Thais will pick up the ingredients they need for the day. It is a very aromatic and colorful scene – even though sometimes the smells aren’t always that nice. Fishy…ewww.
The cooking class was a lot of fun and we met a lot of others traveling the world. Some were traveling for a year, some seven months, to all these really obscure and interesting places. For a second, it makes our trip seem so small, but then I think of home, and I know it’s not. In our class we met up with a couple our age from Amsterdam (well, just outside Amsterdam). Educated and good English speakers we ended up spending the rest of the night hanging out with them. After the cooking class (we brought home the book with recipes!!) we were all dropped of at the center of the night markets. We walked around for a few hours sharing some traveling stories, talking about places we have been (well, maybe mostly where they had been) about what we did, where we’re from, etc. We had a really nice time walking and talking and taking small breaks to negotiate a good deal for wanted items. When we were all shopped out we sat for a few beers and made arrangements to meet for dinner the next night. By the time our night was over it felt like we had been in Chiang Mai for days. Tomorrow is Sunday and we go off trekking in the jungle and meet our new friends for dinner. Tomorrow is also the day when Chaing Mai puts on their Sunday Market – so the town is to be filled with craft vendors, food vendors, and anything else I think I can imagine at this point.

Days Traveled: 58
Distance Traveled: 45,974km/28,733mi
Countries Visited: 17