Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep

It's funny how quickly a foreign word(s) that sounds like complete gibberish can actually make sense when you visit or move to that place. These are the kinds of things that took me forever to remember when we first moved here but now they are like second nature. A "Wat" is the word for a Buddhist Temple. They are EVERYWHERE. We took Mimie to a few, but wanted to take her up to the one on Doi Suthep because it is the most sacred and popular in this area. Many Thai people will take sort of a pilgrimage here from wherever they live in the country. The word "Doi" is the Northern Thai word for "Mountain." Suthep is the name of the mountain. So it makes complete sense. The Temple called "Phrathat" on Suthep mountain.

We stopped at our favorite Mexican restaurant (one of only two Mexican restaurants in the city). The kids love it. Mimie doesn't like Mexican but she humored us. :-)

A view of Chiang Mai from one of the overlooks as we drove up the mountain.

So to get from the street up to the Wat you have to climb 309 steps - and these aren't small steps! Whew. I had Sora on my back so we let Damien and the boys go ahead and Mimie and I took our time!

Resting at the top!

This is the "Chedi" of the Wat. I'm pretty sure all Thai Wat's have one. Some are gold-ish (I'm not exactly sure what metal it is) like this one...and some are just cement. This Wat was built around 1390.

Definitely lots of teachable moments for our kids!

Micaiah loves Gongs and actually asked me to take his picture. :-)

A lady who stopped us and asked if she could take a picture of her son with Orin and Micaiah.