After eating weird things and going to street markets, this excursion took us to a more mainstream tourist site: Wat Phra That Doi Suthep.
We took a Grab (the Southeast Asia version of Uber/Lyft), which costed only ~$15 USD for some 30 km, which is super cheap. I have no idea how the economics of that even work since the cost of a car is about the same everywhere. The driver dropped us off at the base of the temple and we had to walk up a long flight to stairs in the burning heat.
The temple grounds has a lot of rooms like this for worshipping. They all have big golden statues in them too.
The Thai royalty is also a big deal too.
Not far from the temple was the palace gardens of Bhubing Palace. It was a nice scenic walk, but otherwise there isn’t much to see.
As usual, Mike has made a video about this part of the trip. Check it out!
On the way back, the same driver who took us here to begin with was still hanging around, apparently looking for people to drive back. When he bumped into us, he offered to drive us back for a rate less than what Grab charged (way to cut out the middle man)!
That ends our touristy day trip. See more of my trip to Chiang Mai here.