ALU minium part 2

Holy crap,
we have been having a way better time the past few days. I say better time because the first four or five days were very overwhelming and were spent sulking about home and the ocean. I know, I know, we shouldn't be sulking when we're in Thailand but it really was very overbearing to be separated from everything and be planted in fairly large cities. We were rescued(I'm being a bit dramatic but whatever) by three new British friends of ours called Kelly, Kirsten and Mary. They were very welcoming and got us to get off our sulky asses and go see the sights. I'm sure they weren't aware of doing any of it but they did.
so on Sunday, the day they left for the sandy beaches of southern Thailand, we went Wat-ing and saw some really amazing things. We caught a sung tao(pick-up truck taxis) to take us up to see Doi Suthep, a beautiful Wat on top of a mountain that overlooks Chiang Mai. The ride was precarious( like all sung tao rides) because the drivers drive very fast no matter what the circumstance. When we got to the top of the Mountain, there was a three-hundred step staircase we had to climb up first. The staircases of many wats here have serpent like dragons carved out of stone for railings and the staircase and Doi Suthep is no different. When we got to the top of the staircase, the sight of the city was awesome, but the Temples brilliance far out shone the view of the city(haha). But seriously, the Chedi (large spires in every wat) was all in gold leaf, and the way the sun hit it and the temple it was unreal. We had heard that the best time of day to visit the temple was at sundown, and visit it at sundown we did. The temple itself has a very interesting story as well, a story I will tell you now:

Some time ago, the king at the time wanted to make a new temple, so he placed a relic of Buddha himself on the back of a white elephant(Only Thai royalty are allowed to own white elephants) and said a prayer for the elephant to know where Buddha would want the temple. The elephant proceeded to climb up the mountain and when it got to the top it trumpeted three times and then laid down and died. The act is seen as an act of divine inspiration and the temple was built exactly where the elephant died.

I think the story is really cool and it only added to the beauty of the most beautiful wat I've seen yet.

After that we came back to the hostel(the brits were staying in the same hostel, Eagle House 2 which I highly recommend) and decided to go out for dinner by the river. we caught a sung tao over there and had a really good dinner complete with live music. After dinner we came back to the strip of clubs right next to our hostel and partied. We went to a really cool reggae bar with a really good live band that played dub and ska covers. then two Thai children showed up with their mothers, who were selling hill tribe necklaces and bracelets. The little girl was very cheeky and we played with them and had a good laugh. As soon as Jo took out the camera they went nuts!. They loved the camera, and I'll definitely try to add some of the pictures taken in a bit. After dancing and drinking for a long while the bar closed and the lights went out but we stayed and hung out with the guitarist and a couple of others who stayed as well. An acoustic guitar was brought out and the guitarist started to do Bob Marley covers. It was rad. I met a dude with dreadlocks there that had a Vietnamese mother and a French-English father. We started talking and before I knew it we were alternating talking in both languages. He would ask me a question in English and without even thinking about it I would reply in french and vice versa. It was so cool. I just kind of let go and talked in which ever language suited the topic best. I've always wanted to do that and without even thinking about it I just did. That was definitely the highlight of the evening for me.
anyways, next post is the trek.
Ben