Damn Roosters

The roosters are still waking us up at 4:50am every morning and that is how our day started. Gary, Dave and I headed into Bo Sang which, is better known as the umbrella town. There are many, many, many little shops selling trinkets of every type for the avid tourist. The umbrella factory is located downtown where an assembly line of busy workers take part in different areas of creation. The painters are not busy enough not to stop and offer to paint anything you are wearing or holding. We had our cell phone painted for 50 Baht.

Outside of Bo Sang we stopped for a lunch where the family grew everything they served. We waited until it was time to meet up with a friend of Gary and Somsee's. She is a tour guide and took us up the mountain to Doi Suthep. This is the temple at the top of the mountain, it is truly spectacular. The view of Chiang Mai was incredible from the top.

After the temple we went for dinner, Dave and I were not hungry at all. However, we thought that wherever we went we'd order a soup...or we could go to a buffet. Our guide, her driver and Somsee decided on a giant Korean style eating hall, you cook your food yourself over coals and a dish of water. It's hard to explain, but you BBQ your fish/meats and boil herbs and vegetables in the water below creating a broth. This is as authentic as it gets, not a single other person of the 600 in there was a foreigner.



All in all, tourism was a success. We only counted 3 other people with the same Lonely Planet book as us. Of course we didn't have ours pulled open out on a street corner, but I'm sure that will happen when we don't have Gary and Somsee.