My, hotel is amazing. I slept super well, even though I woke up at 4am I lounged around until about 830 then got ready for the day. I get a buffet breakfast here and it was huge. Both Asian and western breakfast was served I can’t fathom eating stir fry for breakfast again so I went with the western breakfast of mini pancakes and corn flakes. Their orange juice almost tastes like tang and orange juice mixed together but it’s just their yummy oranges!!
I looked up the Doi Suthep trek and from my hotel it was about 8.5 km. I started walking with the intention of hiking up and riding a cab down, but about 2km into my walk through town I was so hot. I decided to attempt one of the red truck rides. It’s a low riding truck that has a cover and benches in the back. Usually its about 30 baht ($1) for a ride. I was going to call for one on the Grab (uber) app and while it was loading one pulled up honked it’s horn and asked where I was going. I told him and he said ok. I got in back and there were two girls already in there. They were from Slovenia. We were going to somewhat the same place. Katarina and Ania were awesome.
We decided to venture together and threw both our original plans out the window for the random fact we were now doing it together. We road another red truck to the top of Doi Suthep to the temple. We followed the group of tourists up a couple stairs, turned right and saw a WHOLE LOT MORE STAIRS. The only way to see anything was up, so up we went. Tourists have to pay 30 baht to get in so we paid and headed in, after catching our breathe first.
Temple was usual for most I’ve been to now, but it’s about 1100 meters above Chiang Mai so the view could be good. One of the girls at the elephant park told me it was a hazy view though. And she was right we got to the lookout point and couldn’t see the actual city, disappointing for sure. We did this thing where there are sticks in a cup and you shake it around until just a single stick falls out. What that stick means is your fortune. I got a great one.
We hung around for a bit longer, Katarina did a handstand in the middle of this wooden awning thing. We decided to go find the waterfalls. I read I needed to download an app called maps.me to help with the trail. Great idea because in the end it was a savior. Where the app told us to go, there was a Do Not Enter sign with “contact park staff” below. So we went to find the information booth. Told them where we wanted to go and they sent us back to where we came from, clearly that was a waste of time sign.
The hike was 95% down hill and jungleous!! Exactly what I was looking for. The map showed 2 water falls, for about a 4km total trip down. We had to climb over fallen trees, under some branches, it was great.
And it was all in the shade, protecting us from the extra heat of the sun. We found this random awesome tree and made a picture stop. As we were leaving a lady approached me and asked if we were going to the water falls and if she and her son could follow, so they did.
We made it to the first set of falls and ran into another two guys (Tamas and Danny) who were also heading the same way we were. We chatted for a bit, took some pictures and then it started to rain.
Since I had the app, and we were all trying to go the same place, everyone stayed together and followed what the map said.
We ran into a small waterfall and Katarina decided to get in the water for a picture. By the time she got out it was raining significantly more so we continued on our way down. We started seeing placards with information on them and knew for sure we were going the right way. We made it to the “entrance” of the hike, but the way we came was from the “do not enter” sign. So we don’t know where the actual park trail takes you!!
The final water fall was great, and it was pouring at that point. We took a group selfie and continued down. The walk to the start of the park was another 4km away, but at least it was paved. We saw a red truck and asked if he’d take us down, at first he said no, but came back a minute later with 100 baht per person. We decided to walk because we knew we were getting ripped off. As we were walking a truck approached us from behind and offered to let us sit in the bed for the ride to the end of the park. We were so happy!! We all jumped in. They let us out at the park entrance and I gave the guy 20 baht. He tried to give it back to me, but it was so nice to have that 3 minute ride down. He and his wife then said they were going into Chiang Mai and offered us another ride!!We had about a 10 minute ride in the back of a truck down to the red truck stop. We were all so grateful!! We thanked them and then all hopped into a red truck to head to our hotels.
We decided to meet up again for the night market. We met at 7 pm at the Hard Rock (I had no idea they had a Hard Rock). All of us may back up and had some dinner at the street market and then walked around the night market. They have some pretty good knock offs so Katarina was trying to haggle for me (she’s a pro she says). It didn’t work on the lady so we left, but Tamas and Danny went back and got her down to almost half!! I am now the proud owner of a knock off Supreme Louis V wallet, in red.
We hit up the Irish pub after and had drinks (even I did!!) and chatted for a long while. We were all looking pretty tired so I said let’s go get foot massages. We tried to haggle the price since there were 6 of us, but no one budged. We struggled to find 6 chairs together anyway so we went to two massage parlors next to each other and all got them at the same time. They all loved it!! We hit another bar across the street before it closed at midnight, parted ways (half went one way, half went the other), hit up 7-11 (Thailand is obsessed with them) and all went back to our hotels to crash. We are all going to be down in the Phuket/Phi Phi/Krabi area so we will attempt to meet up again.
Best day, by far, in a long long while. This, my friends, is why I travel, to meet people from all over the world, who like me, want to go all over the world.
Normal Travel Girl 
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