Day 4...or the day I rode up a mountain in the back of a pickup truck

Since I went to Mass last night, I had a gloriously lazy morning. I ate a really awesome breakfast with fruit and yogurt and started chatting with a bunch of other travelers. One of the best parts of backpacking is the friends you make!  Two British girls had just rolled into the hostel from Bangkok. We decided to make a trip to the temple on the mountain, Wat Phra That Doi Suthep.

This entails a 45 minute ride up the mountain in a red truck taxi.  They're a little less sketchy than tuk tuks, but still pretty out there.  At least it's a lot more enclosed so you feel a little safer, but it's all a ruse.  If this thing got into a wreck there'd be hell to pay.

There's really not much to say about the trip or the temple.  It's just really pretty, so I'll leave some pictures for your enjoyment and peace out!

After the temple and all those stairs, it was time for a solid air conditioner break. I hung out in my room at wrote the blog for Day 3 and just chatted with mom and Jeff some.  Around 6:30 or so, we headed out to the night market. It was massive.  We started walking and there were booths set up endlessly everywhere.  Remember all the temples? THEY were full of vendors. The streets were lined on both sides, sometimes down the middle too.  Anything you can imagine, food, clothes, shoes, neck pillows for flights, iPhone cases, EVERYTHING.  

We ate dinner from some of the street vendors.  I introduced Rebecca and Rachael to mango and sticky rice. It's more of a dessert, but still so delicious! We walked and walked and walked through the market. I bought a few little trinkets along the way.

All in all it was a good, relaxing Sunday in Thailand.  Tomorrow, I head to Laos to meet up with Jeff, which I think might be the best moment of this whole trip!

The view from a lookout halfway up the mountain

The red taxi that took us up the mountain

Had to climb all the steps to get to the temple.  

I find similarities between religions interesting. Here, a Buddhist monk is blessing people with water.

I thought this was a super polite way to say SHUT UP!

Absolutely beautiful!

After the tour, we had time to tour a jade factory. Cool fact, black jade is actually green when you shine a light through it.

Chiang Mai street market...this goes on for blocks down like four different streets!

This little bamboo table is where we got to eat our sticky rice and fresh mango!

Food vendors were out in full force too!

I thought these patterns were very Polish-esque, but I resisted the urge to buy them.

The monks were leading some sort of night time meditation. It was cool to see the temple full!