Skip to main content

Doi Suthep

When we first got to Chiang Mai, Thailand, we stayed in a hotel that had a room that overlooked this awesome mountain (this is the view from our room). It's a granite mountain that has two peaks. The one in front has a buddhist temple on top which is commonly called Doi Suthep. You can sort of see it at the top of the first peak in this picture. Anyway, we went to that temple one day while in Chiang Mai. We went there our first time in Chiang Mai about 5 years ago and hadn't been there since, so we thought we'd go up the mountain again...
It is a curvy swervy ride up the mountain but we made it (Adam and Aashini only got a little car sick on the way back..) :) There were some kids up on top of the mountain doing some traditional dances for the people that came up there.
There were a lot of Buddhist Monks at the temple.
Most Buddhist Temples have bells that you are supposed to ring. They were big.

Aashini was very interested in the bells.

She wanted her picture taken next to this really big bell...
Here's the view from the top... Pretty neat!
There were these funny dragons at one point with a sign written in Thai. Underneath the Thai was the word: "Mom" - not sure if that was a translation or not... but why did they have the word "Mom" next to the dragon? hmm.... haha! It made me laugh!
A lady took a family pic of us :)
Here's the actual temple inside the complex.
This is a monk inside one of the buildings praying to Buddha.
Here's a cute little girl :) She loved posing for pictures ;)
Here she is again after she was done performing :) She was cute :)
It was an interesting cultural day!! :)

Comments

Christine said…
funny that the sign says mom. haha
Emily said…
When provoked, I guess I can be quite dragon-like. :)
I love your haircut!!
Anonymous said…
I looked up "mom" in thai and it is this: แม่ Not sure what it says on the dragon! HA! I might get my old college roommate to look at it and tell me what it says. She lives in Thailand!
I recognize that view! We had the same view of the mountain on New Year's Eve last year and everyone in the city released paper lanterns... there were tons floating from the mountain and you could see them from the city when they rose up in front of the mountain. Very cool! We've never been up there though... if I ever go, I will most definitely take a picture by the Mom Dragon:) Fun!
SouthAsiaRocks said…
Carrie - you crack me up :) Good idea looking it up! If you ask your friend in Thailand I'd love to hear what she says :)
Anonymous said…
What I did was took just the words and sent her the picture. Here is her response:

The “mom” is a mythical character which looks similar to a cross between a cat and a lion. It is a carrier for the deity “Patchunna” (a rain divinity in the Lanna tradition). These creatures can be seen in temples and other religious sites all over the Lanna region.

Popular posts from this blog

Cooking!

Cooking is sooo much harder here. THis is how you "puree" vegetables when you don't have a blender or food processor (or power). Some people have those things, but most people don't. This is my friend Gita. She's mashing up some onions. It's a marble slab that's not polished and they use a big rounded rock and just roll/mash! It's cool!!

Protesting

There's some political stuff going on in our city (and now the country) right now. People are peacefully fighting against corruption. It's been very interesting to follow. Tonight there was some protesting in our neighborhood. Here are some more protesting pictures. There will probably be more protesting to come... we'll see what happens!

Funny Things - Random :)

Here's a few random funny things ;) One thing that drives a lot of people crazy is honking! There are things that drive me crazy (like people urinating on the sidewalks - yuck!) but thankfully honking is not one of them because we hear it pretty much 24/7. We saw this poster the other day (below) and thought it was funny... BUT not as funny as the Hindi poster. The Hindi poster pretty much said that 'Honking is bad for your health' - haha ! Horns are actually a pretty necessary part of driving here. You don't really look behind you when you drive (most people either don't use their side mirrors, don't have side mirrors, or just have them folded in). When you drive, you just drive forward and you honk at the person in front of you to let them know that you're there - simple right? Sure, it's a little noisy, but you never have to look behind you :) If you go to that company's website it says: "Have patience at the traffic signals, let the signal t...