Doi Suthep and the Shopping Mall

Wow this all seems so long ago. On Saturday I got up bright and early with Paul and Marissa and went to some swishy middle class Thai/farang coffee joint at the end of their soi. After that we cruised around town a little bit, did a few errands and then caught a sangtaew to the top of Doi Suthep, the highest mountain in Chiang Mai. It actually overlooks the entire town.

At the top of the hill, a wonderfully painful curving road designed to bring out the motion sickness in the most travel hardy - there is a Buddhist wat. But to get to the Buddhist wat you have to climb a couple of hundred stairs. But the view from the top was worth it. It was a beautifully clear day and you could see all of Chiang Mai. The wat is also quite impressive. Leafed with gold, its spire (I can't remember the proper architectural term for it) looked absolutely stunning against the crystal clear blue sky.

Then it was down the steps again stopping of for a pork crackling pitstop. At the bottom of the hill there is a poor sad elephant to feed. It was the first elephant I saw in Thailand so that was quite exciting and I got this fantastic photo of this tiny child feeding the elephant. I swear the elephant was about to swallow him like a peanut.

In the afternoon we went to the airport mall to check out life - middle class Thai style. It was a suprisingly uneventul mall though I did discover that Ipod's are no cheaper over here and the accessories are significantly dearer.

The evening yielded the best shopping trip of the entire sojourn. We headed off to some markets in short of a belt and discovered these amazing student markets filled, not with Von Dutch and Diesel knock offs, but one off t-shirts, second hand gear and generally all round cool stuff. Then we finished off the night with a swisho dinner in some fancy tapas bar in old town. God damn locals never want to eat the Thai food :)