day ten

"That Day" made us rethink our plans to go on another trek, so we did the whole day by ourselves with our trusty lonely planet guidebook in hand. we first visited Doi Suthep, a giant temple atop a giant hill that had a giant set of stairs (300 of them) in front. it sort of looked like one of those big staircase temple from Nepal, which was the big thrill. otherwise, it wasnt that interesting. i mean, a temple is a temple. a wat is a wat is a wat.

then off to the umbrella village!!!! lucky us, today was one of two days A YEAR that this village holds an umbrella festival, with all the shops selling umbrellas and umbrella floats and umbrella making shops and other cool stuff. the highlight was when we got to call the tourist police because our driver lied to us and wanted us to pay a lot more than we agreed to. (remember that thais lie?) so the police showed up in their nice car with a siren but unfortunately the policeman sucked because he made us pay way more than we should have. but it was fun calling the police.

then we shopped and rachelle and linda got thai massages. night train down to ayuthaya. wait-- how is this night train different from all other night trains? on this night train we SAT. for TWELVE HOURS. (guess who didn't book their tickets early enough...)