Today is last day in Chiang Mai. This afternoon we’ll move on to our next destination: Luang Prabang! However, since we had not visited Doi Suthep, one of Chiang Mai’s most important temples. We woke up early morning and pottered around in the garden of our hotel before heading up to the temple.
After breakfast, we got a “sangthaew” (one of those ubiquitous red truck-converted-to-taxi’s) to take us up to the temple.
We got there we got there before most of the tourist buses so it was relatively quiet. We spent an hour around the temple taking photos and walking around admiring the carvings and shrines and decided to head back home. The wat was very beautiful and there were a lot of people offering prayers. When we came down the hill, we got a terrible headache and immediately regretted being lazy and not taking the motion sickness tablets.
On the way down, I started missing my grandmother a lot and I could not control my tears for a few seconds. We decided to recite Hanuman Chalisa to get my mind off those thoughts. When our sangathaew driver, who did not speak any english, dropped us off at our hotel, we thanked him in Thai and he said wait a minute. He gave me a very small Buddha image. I am not sure why he gave it but he gave it to me and wai’d. We wai’d back and it all felt so good. It was definitely one of the top moments of our trip. The little Buddha image still sits in our temple at home.
We packed our bags, checked out of the hotel and headed to the airport to catch our flight to Luang Prabang, Laos.