Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep

Up 309 steps on the top of the mountain is the Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep Tempe. It's the most famous temple in Chiang Mai with a 360* outlook of the surrounding area. Lining the street up to the mountain are dozens of little shops selling fresh food, little souvenirs and beautiful flowers folded into roses that the Buddhist people will buy and leave as a part of their ritual. The stairs up to the temple are lined by two huge serpents beautifully carved and leading the way. There were so many people, both tourists like us and devout Buddhist making their way up or down the massive set of steps. Climbing your way to the top of the mountain the thick jungle forest is on either side and you can feel the cooling difference in temperature from the city below. Reaching the end of the serpents tails you find the entrance to Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep. It is a free entrance to Thai people but for us as tourists we had to pay a small fee in order to enter and take a look around. Since the temple is being used you need to make sure you are modestly dressed and reverent before being allowed to proceed. So once we climbed the 309 steps, paid our fee, made sure we were all decently covered and gave the kids a quick pep talk on behavior inside we finally were able to take a look inside this famous temple.

Along the outer edge or bottom floor of the grounds were these huge bells that people were ringing, beautifully carved statues of elephants, Buddha and dragons. This amazing view of the mountains and the city was visible from anywhere you stood and brought this peaceful awed feeling with it. There were also a few mini Buddha shrines with people worshipping inside. Everywhere you looked there was this perfected detail in every bit of architecture. I can only imagine the time it took to create such a huge temple and the upkeep that has to go into keeping it up!

After walking a complete circle around the outer grounds you take off your shoes and climb up a small set of stairs into the middle and highest part of the temple. BREATHTAKING. Inside all you see the bright sun shimmering off of this intense amount of gold. Right away you can feel the heat of the sun being reflected and you have to squint your eyes just a bit to take it all in. In the center were gold. Gold statues, gold towers, gold everything. And the pathway around all this gold was lined with practicing Buddhist carrying their flowers before leaving to kneel down, light their incense and leave their flowers for Buddha. It was really amazing and I was totally blown away by it all. It felt so weird to be there staring at these people as they were worshipping but I was curious and captivated by the whole ambiance.

We ended our morning by going up further into the mountain to Bhu Bhing Palace which is where the royal family resides when in Chiang Mai. It's only open a few weeks of the year when it's not occupied and so we thought we should go up and take a look. Sadly other then a massive rose garden it wasn't too special. The King is so old now he doesn't really ever leave his main residence but apparently the Princess stays there at times.

When telling this to the kids Brayden asks "Is she in?"
"No" I explain, "she's out."
"I wonder where she is" he continues, "maybe at the ball with the Prince."

How cute is that!? I wish that I lived in a Disney world filled with happy endings!
For more pictures of Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep and the Bhu Bhing Palace you can just click "here"