The next morning, we said goodbye to Chiang Rai. We drove by bus to Chiang Mai…two mini buses. It took several hours because of recent storms that washed roads away.
But first…silly photos in the hotel lobby at Chiang Rai…
It was a picturesque drive with a rest stop in the middle. A rest stop that had a Cafe Amazon! It’s a bit like the Thai equivalent of a Starbucks.
First stop in Chiang Rai was to visit Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. This was a Theravada Buddhist temple. This temple is atop a small mountain, and there are phenomenal views of the city at the top! Also, this temple contains a relic of the Buddha.
It was a long funicular ride to the top!
There were so many beautiful flowers and paper lanterns everywhere. It felt a bit like a fairy tale up there…
Just when you feel completely enamored by the surrounding pretties, you catch a glimpse of the view beyond the distractions…
There was literally beauty around every corner up there.
Beauty wherever we looked. Buddhist statuary and iconography has always held a special place in my heart. It exudes serenity.
With all the fake AI wood carvings exploding all over the Facebook airwaves, it was so lovely to see an ACTUAL woodcarving at this temple…there were, in fact, a few.
We stopped at a beautiful lookout point about halfway down the mountain as we headed toward Chiang Mai in the distance…
The Bella Nara Hotel in Chiang Mai was probably my favorite hotel of the trip. The only drawback was the pool. It was okay, but tiny and surrounded by the hotel…so almost always in the shade. The hotel was beautiful. I hate to use that despised word Colonial…but it did give off Colonial vibes.
The hotel restaurant/bar was luxurious and very Colonial…reminded me of such places in both Kenya and India.
After drinks at the hotel bar, we were headed off to a traditional Khantoke dinner. Khantoke is a culturally rich dining experience that originates from Northern Thailand, particularly the Lanna people. It’s a communal dinner served on low wooden tables called Khantokes, which are surrounded by floor seating mats.
The khantoke table we sat at, though, had a sunken-in area around it…so we had space for our legs and we sat normally as though we were at a regular sized table. I kinda wish that it was an actual low table so we could have experienced it more authentically. But the meal was exceptional! I loved it.
Before we get to the meal, though…it was just the 4 of us partaking in this one. The rest of the group were going somewhere else. As they were escaping the hotel parking lot, we happened to see them…I think the following triptych of photos speak for themselves. (-:
There was a lot of entertainment…from acrobatics, gymnastics, dance, knife wielding, etc.
It was really quite an action-packed day! We were ready for bed. And our next day! It would be our second ethically questionable excursion. Elephants!
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KEVIN CRAIG 
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