Day 4: Wednesday 17th May 2006

Day 4 of the Great Chiang Mai Trip saw all of us (Espy, Sendy, Vivian, Doca & myself) plan to head up to Doi Suthep, a mountain 1.68km in height that is closest to the city of Chiang Mai. It's only less than 8km from the city itself! We got our bikes (I got a red Honda 125cc street bike and Espy got the blue one (semi-auto step-through gear shifting type) and 'cute' green helmets that made us look like VIETCONG - according to my gf who's Vietnamese. Well, it was about 11am after we'd had breakfast early in the morning, washed up, planned our trip and decided that we would:

Drive up to Doi Suthep

Visit the Doi Suthep Temple

Visit the King's Winter Palace

Visit a mountain hill-tribe village

Of all these we only managed to fulfill the first three because we literally forgot that we wanted to visit the mountain hill-tribe villages! Dang! Well, we went up from outside of hotel, helmets on and passengers loaded.


The ride there was a little interesting... I went off-course because we aren't really supposed to have three people on a bike. I saw cops and freaked out so I missed a turn where there were the men in green (police in thailand wear green - a yucky moss green color). We later found the right road thanks to Doca who asked someone along the street and were back on track towards the mountain! There's Doca and Vivian (at the back of the bike that I was riding.


We finally reached the top of the mountain (not really the top... but the place generally regarded as the summit cos there's a big market there with stores and the temple) and took a picture there - check out the clouds at the back of us. In the background you can see a red colored pickup truck - those trucks there are the taxi's. You pay them anything between 20 - 60 baht to take you to places - cheap travels. They're the same as local taxi's back in Singapore in the fact that you have to flag them off from the road. The main differences are that you don't have air-conditioning and you have to speak to the driver and settle on a price before you set off - there's no meter.


Espy and I face off at the carpark area :D


The Wat (Temple in Thai) at Doi Suthep is really really really high up - a super long staircase to get up. We opted the lazy man's way of getting up and down by paying 20 Baht to get onto the 45 degree elevator up the slope to the temple! hehehehe :) At the top, we were treated to a very nice temple - gold plated! Woo :D


We then headed up about 6km up the mountain from the temple to the King's Winter Palace. It was supposed to be good - nice palace grounds with a huge garden that was a sanctuary for over 300 species of birds and i can't remember how many species of plants! We weren't disappointed when we arrived there - very nice place to have photos taken too! NO KIDDING! Wedding pictures here would be a blast! We spent our tie there taking some pix of ourselves. haha!











We were feeling so hungry after that so we decided to leave - forgetting that we had wanted to visit the mountain hill-tribe villages that were up in the mountain! How silly huh? Well, our stomachs led the way and we headed down the mountain towards Chiang Mai city again. We were riding down to Chiang Mai when I saw a big sign saying "BUFFET 79 Baht!" WOW!! I stopped and the 5 of us dug into extremely delicious Japanese and European food!


There's Vivian outside the store, posing with the sign that I saw!


Doca's enjoying herself here! So much sushi and its ALL U CAN EAT!!!


After the meal, we went our separate ways again - Doca and I then headed down to the National Museum of Chiang Mai, hoping that it would be a good experience. Turns out that the place had hardly anything and all we got was a shot of Ganesh, the Hindu God (Son of Shiva). We didn't go in cos the brochure they showed us was horrible... we decided we didn't want to waste our time there. Doca is wondering why we didnt go in.


We then headed to Pantip Plaza cos I wanted to look for some software We ended up eating at the burrito house! Nice burritos and enchiladas!


It was around 4pm I think, and we decided to go driving around. We visited Chiang Mai Lotus before meeting up with the guys at the night bazaar again where we had some food at a restaurant called "Fatty Restaurant" - notice that pic? That dude is carrying a big ball of fats... yuck!







The food at Fatty's wasn't that great so after that, we went our ways again and Doca and I explored the little lanes... finding a VEGETARIAN FOOD OUTLET!!! We popped in and man.... so cosy and cool! The food was GREAT too! :D











That's the end of day 4 :)