Our Final Day! (in Thailand!)

Friday was our final day in Chiang Mai so we called our taxi driver, Tong, again and had him pick us up and take us up the mountain to the famed Wat Phra That Doi Suthep temple. This elaborate golden temple is high on a mountain top just outside of Chiang Mai and normally has amazing views of Chiang Mai and the surrounding countryside. However, Chiang Mai is experiencing record high levels of haze right now and the visibility is practically nill. In fact, we didn’t even know you could see the mountains from our hotel until the setting afternoon sun on our first day highlighted them.

The story goes that some time in the 14th century, the King placed a relic on the back of a sacred white elephant and let it wander freely to find a location for a new temple. The elephant walked 3,280 feet up the side of Doi Suthep mountain, trumpeted 3 times, turned 3 times counterclockwise in a circle and knelt down. On this spot the Wat (temple) was built. Now that's the story, I'm just repeating it!

The temple was beautiful, although the full impact was a little diminished as it’s undergoing restoration right now. Our driver told us there was an earthquake two years ago that damaged the main structure so they are now fixing it. One of the most impressive things about this temple is that even after a winding, steep drive up the mountain, you still have to climb 307 steps to get to the thing.

That’s a lot of steps! At the top, surrounding the temple were lots of demonstrations of local dance and entertainment.

And then there was the entertainment provided by Emmy. I have to say that I thought the Japanese loved Emmy, but the Thai people LOVED Emmy. They were fascinated by her as was demonstrated by an incident at the temple. We were casually walking along when all of a sudden a family stopper her and positioned their two daughters next to her for a picture. The next thing we knew, more kids were in the picture, then the whole family was in the picture. Then there were all kinds of people taking pictures of our daughter with their family members. It was wild! Grammie said we should have charged 10 Baht. Poor Emmy, she didn't seem to know what was going on, but she graciously tolerated it.

That evening we flew back to Bangkok and stayed at the hotel airport to be ready for a 6 am flight on Saturday. The hotel was the fanciest yet with an awesome pool area with huge fish sculpture fountains and a swim up bar. What a beautiful way to end to our awesome Thai vacation!