Last night in Chiang Mai

We haven't done much in Chiang Mai--my mother got sick from the breakfast on the train. The second night we were here she felt well enough to venture out to the Sunday Market, which is just a few minutes walk from here. Sellers of crafts and food put their stuff out for sale. It started out okay, but it got increasingly more crowded until we were elbow to elbow and back to front with a sea of people trying to make our way to a path out.
Then yesterday we first arranged our flight plans to Luang Prabang in Laos. We looked at doing the fast boat or the slow boat but decided in the end to just fly. The slow boat is supposed to be nice, but it's little more than a canoe for hours and hours and you have to literally squat over the side of the boat to use the toilet--very spartan.
With plane ticket in hand we hired a seat on one of the red pickup truck taxis to take us way up the mountain to the Buddhist monastary Doi Sutthep. It cost 15 baht to get to the zoo then 300 baht roundtrip to go to the monastary, and 20 baht to get back to the hotel.
Here we are in the truck taxi. There is a bench on each side and you just stop one and see if they are going your way and if so you hop on.
This is the entrance to Doi Sutthep. It cost 30 baht to get in, but we also paid an extra 20 baht to ride up on a cable car/elevator rather than walk the 200 steps.
Me on the truck ride up. It was a long trip but very beautiful. There were several sight seeing stops along the way. We could never have walked it.

This is the main temple, with a line of bells.
Inside the main temple there was this gold obelisk and numerous Buddha images.
There were two chapels where monks and nuns were discussing philosophy with visitors.
There was a very nice view of the city from this point.
My mother has been interested in the many images of the king that are scattered everywhere, including the temple grounds. He is very popular.

So now we are on to Laos for three days and by Friday should be back in Saigon!