Driving Up High to Doi Suthep
When we had hired a Susuki Caribian car we decided to drive along Nimmanhemin Road and went up Doi Suthep. With a map from the Tourisim Authority of Thailand in Chiang Mai and the Chiang Mai city map that we bought from Bangkok,I could figure out the way to drive a car in Chiang Mai. I can say that the map from the Tourisim Authority of Thailand (sponsored by Thaiways) doies not have enough detail s that we want. It is just a big picture map. So I had to use both the Chiang Mai City map and the TAT map together.
At the start Aom and I wanted to drive along Nimmanhemin Road to look around for home decoration shop. But after we drove through the road for some time looking at the shops along the road,we decided to go on to Doi Suthep instead. because the shops we saw look so luxurious and the craftitems are too high in prices. They were not the kind of prices we wanted to pay .
It was nearly 4 p.m. when we started to drive to Doi Suthep. It was my first time to drive a car up a mountain. But I think it is very easy for to drive to Doi Suthep. Good road, except the section that spans 300 metres before Prathat Doi Suthep. It may give you trouble if your car does not have a good engine.
We parked the car at the free parking area and walked about 500 metres to the front of Prathat Doi Suthep. We decided to take a tram to go to the top. We paid 20 baht round trip per person for the tram fare. The tram here looks like an elevator not a track tram as I used to ride at the Peak in Hong Kong 2 years ago.
When we were at the top, we had to takek off our shoes before entering the Prathat (temple) Doi Suthep. There was a locker area for keeping your shoes but in this area, it is stinky and smell very badly. Just imagine if, within a week , there are a 1,000 people taking off their shoes and putting them in these lockers, how stinky these lockers will be become .. arrhhh.
Aom gave paid a worship to the Buddha and then we went inside the temple. Wow.. the pagoda was very beautiful. I saw it many times in the postcard or magazine. But this was my first time that I saw the real one. We took a lot of pictures of Prathat Doi Suthep’s pagoda. Everyone was taking the pagoda picture too. It is really beautiful.
We went out from the temple and walked to the view point. From this view point, you will see Chiang Mai city far away below . Chiang Mai city seems to be a little city from here. The weather was colder when the evening comes. We decided to go down to the town before 6 p.m. because we had booked a Khantoke Dinner at 7 p.m.
Our route down the hill from Doi Suthep was very fast but there was a little traffic jam in the city area especially around the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar.