Doi Inthanon

Wow – so much in the last few days. I took a million pics too. I’m trying to upload them to Snapfish so I can share. I’ll start with the day-trip to the mountain:

Friday, Feb 9: We went to this national park in this nearby mountain, Doi Inthanon, the tallest mountain in Thailand. On the way out of town we stopped at a large market, Ban Tawai, and perused mostly handmade goods and folk art. It is supposedly one of the biggest markets in Thailand (3.5 km of stalls) according to Gig, our tourguide. Side note: Gig works with the cotton industry. He supports fair trade, naturally dyed cotton goods and seems to know someone at every market we go to. He also knows a lot about Thailand’s countryside and has a truck with four-wheel drive. Gig loves Che Guevara and his English is minimal at best, sometimes with a very funny spin. Example: the word, “beautiful” for Gig is “Boo-tee-fun”. Gig and his girlfriend, Aum, have been awesome.

On our way up the mountain we got to see some traditional mountainside Thai houses on stilts. The park itself featured waterfalls and trails, and at the top is a temple for the King and Queen of Thailand. I haven’t talked yet about the monarchy. They are well loved. For those of you confused about the coup (I was until I got here) the Prime Minister was overthrown by the military. The PM seems to have been a guy no one liked very much and was rather power hungry. The King would publicly put him in his place in speeches. Ultimately, the PM was overthrown but the King still reigns. I also think I read somewhere that this monarchy is the oldest remaining in the world. Everyone loves the King. They wear bracelets (not unlike the Armstrong “live strong” bracelets) that say on them “I love the King” and yellow t-shirts with the king’s crest on them. The T-shirt is routinely worn on Mondays (the day of the week the King was born) but can be seen on people pretty much anytime. Chris was wearing one in the picture from my first entry – when he’s holding his socks up. In here is a pic of the King and Queen’s photos between the entrances to their two temples.

So, back to the trip, near the top of the mountain are these beautiful temples (and, um, a military base, but that’s less exciting). The King’s temple has a sitting Buddha and all these carvings around it. The Queen’s has a standing Buddha and a gorgeous mosaic. The view from each was spectacular and each had an impressive garden with a multitude of flowering plants – including daisy trees like the one I have at home, but obviously happier.

At the very top of the mountain are a hiking trail, stream, and memorial to someone -- can’t remember who this someone was, but the memorial was very pretty. I think this person was also struck by lightening (there was a memorial at Three Kings for another big figure who was struck by lightening). We got some lunch – I had a Thai Omelet – and relaxed a bit near one of the King’s agricultural projects. There was also a huge waterfall cascading down a mountain in the distance. Trees were in bloom everywhere and even the stray dogs seemed fat and happy up there.

Gig then took us down hundreds of stone steps, winding down the side of the mountain, at the bottom was Mae Klang waterfall (pictured at the start of this blog with Tanya and here with Gig). It was pretty spectacular. There was also a parking lot down there (there apparently didn’t used to be) so Gig volunteered to walk back up the hundreds of steps and move the car for us. I am still sore from just the descent and we were all really grateful we didn’t have to hike back up (especially since we were in for a lot of stairs for more waterfalls the next day).

Sunset on the drive back was boo-tee-fun, as Gig said. Huge glowing red ball descending into mist. We tried to capture it on film but it just wasn’t working (the sun always came out yellow, not the bright red we all saw). I was sleepy and managed a few minutes of shut-eye in the windy Suzuki as Gig careened down the expressway at some unknown but certainly very high speed (his speedometer is broken).

For dinner we met up with some of Aum’s co-workers from the hospital (Tanya knows them all from work) at a place called “meme”. We enjoyed live music from a young guy on guitar and yummy food of course. Tanya and I were pretty zoned from our long day in nature but the food was good, garlic-heavy and the company was nice (see picture). There was also an elephant that stopped by the place and played the harmonica for us and danced. I was surprised how well he played and it seemed to go with the guitarist’s music, but maybe I was just imagining that in my post mountain adventure grogginess.