Doi Inthanon --the highest peak in Thailand

This weekend was so busy. With the flower festival on Saturday and the contest ending late on Friday night, my host family decided I should just spend the weekend in the city. So Friday night I stayed over at the Pii's apartment. Which was really fun! Then Saturday afternoon after the parade...(which I don't think I told about.....real quick, the parade was awesome. It was like the Rose Parade. So many floats made of flowers. It was so pretty! It also was so hot. It was only like 11am and it felt like it was 100. There were some marching bands and some native people who dressed in traditional costumes. As soon as we thought it was over, a whole other group of things came by. It was fun. There were lots of little shops that sold "great cheap crap" according to Aj Mike. And lots of food. A few of us had a picnic after the parade was over with some former monks that Pii Stacy knew from her last trip here.)
So after all this...I went to Lauren's house. I was going to spend the night there because her Khun Mee had arranged for a few of us to go visit the highest peak in Thailand the next day...but the catch was she wanted us to be there for the sunrise. So I had to spend the night. She lives in a gorgeous house. A maid, a cook, the whole shabang. Crazy! We went swimming in a pool that looked nicer than most resorts I've been to. And then we went to bed early.
We left Sunday morning at 4:45am! WAY TOO EARLY for my liking! The cook went with us because Lauren's Khun Mee suddenly had to work and couldn't go. She hired a 10 passenger van to drive us. The Mountain was about 1 1/2 away. We saw the sunrise as we were driving to the summit. It was so pretty.
We walked around the summit....which was FREEZING!! Melissa and I brought blankets from Lauren's house because no one gave me the memo that it would be cold. I had a lovely Pooh Bear one and Melissa had a great Hello Kitty one. We then proceeded to wrap ourselves up in them and tour the summit. And I found a hat stand and made a purchase! It's a great hat! I love it!
Then we worked our way down the mountain. Making several stops a long the way. After the summit our first stop was the twin pagodas, a/k/a the King and Queen pagoda. We had a breakfast picnic here. There were 7 of us plus the cook and the driver. So 9 in total. The cook made Pad Thai and Fried Rice for us! It was so good. We ate out of Banana leaf bowls and with tak-i-ap....chop sticks! All while being on the highest peak in Thailand. Such a great experience.
We toured the pagodas after eating. They were probably the coolest pagodas I've seen so far in Thailand...and believe me I've seen A LOT! They were very modern looking and had very neat looking mosaic on the ceiling. Plus the view was breath taking. We were above the clouds and could see the peaks of the mountains peaking through the clouds. So cool!
Then our next stop was waterfall #1. This was an amazing waterfall! We hiked up to this little rock area and just looked at it. It was goregous! Pictures can't even describe how cool it was. Josh, one of the guys who came, brought his guitar and we had a little worship time. It was great! Worshiping next to this huge waterfall, just surrounded by God's beautiful creation! It can't get much better than that.
Then Ian decided to go up the path (I use path very loosely...it was like climbing over limbs and stones, but it was a path) a little further to see the top of the waterfall without a tree limb in the way. I gave him my camera because if he was going up there he might as well get a picture. Along the way he found a huge snake skin. That was a little scary because it meant that snake could be somewhere close. The pictures he got were so cool.
After that waterfall we went to a little market. We got some fruit and I got a teak wood elephant. It's not as big as Grandma T's....if you know what that looks like, but it is certainly heavy! It reminds me of Grandma's Thai Teak Elephant and it's really cool!
Our next stop was another waterfall. This one was great too! We got some pictures at the bottom and then hiked up the path to the top. Again pictures couldn't even capture this waterfall. It was finally hot by the time we got here so the mist coming off the water was amazing. After hiking to the top we found another path that looked like something out of Indian Jones or something that lead to a lost city, so we hiked it too, thinking it lead even higher up the waterfall, but didn't. Just to some road....mighty disappointing. However we realized how American we are in the process. We were so concerned about what was at the top of this path. Thai's would have been more concerned about the journey and not cared so much what was at the top. It put into perspective some of what we had been learning.
One the way back down we met this French artist. Ian and I stopped to talk to him for a bit. He was teaching himself Thai and he knew way more than we did. It was pretty cool. He paints, sculpts, does photography, and a few other things. He told us that we made his day by talking to him. It was kinda nice!
We also ate lunch at this waterfall. Pad Thai and fried rice again! Out of banana bowls and with tak-i-ap! It was so fun!
Then our final stop was a temple at the bottom. We were all kind of exhausted by the time we got here though that we didn't totally care that much about it. We walked through it and it was very pretty, but we've seen so many temples in our time here and we were so exhausted from the entire day that it didn't make too much of an impact.
The day was great and the mountain was gorgeous! I was so happy to be able to do something and see a part of Thailand!! :)