Chiang Mai: Doi Suthep and Phuping Palace

Running on 3 hours of sleep thanks to jet lag, I woke up early today and hauled ass to the shared-taxi stop, on a mission to get to Doi Suthrep before the crowd. Once I got to the stop they told me they require a minimum of 10 passengers before they will leave, and it was just me at that point sooo... good thing I showed up on time.

After 30 minutes of waiting, I started to feel the pain of these cab drivers. Every time someone walked by, I wanted to collect them like my childhood trolls so I could stuff them into the back of the truck with me. Finally, 2 girls my age from Shanghai showed up. Through my broken Chinglish and their Asian haggling skills, we convinced the driver to take just the 3 of us up for a reasonable price.

      

It was a breezy 40-min ride up to the mountain, definitely best done in the back of a pick-up. 

If you know me at all, you know I have a love for all things shiny, so this was an exciting day for me. :)

    

These girls were hustlin'.... they had their poses ready so they could make a quick a 20฿.

Can't get enough of that bling.

Just hangin' out under my golden parasol.

And now I get to document my first Thai street food...a fat surf-n-turf meat lollipop, the classiest of weeners. And the most dericious fresh fruit smoothie.

Next we went to Phuping Royal Palace.  By this time I was officially 3rd wheel to these girls... they were so nice and adopted me like a lost little puppy. Their English was just as bad as my Mandarin so we were having some entertaining convos.  These girls loved to take selfies and were qualified experts at it.  The palace gardens were their selfie dreamland come true, so we frolicked amongst the flowers like an anime episode of the power puff girls.

Modeling my make-shift rent-a-skirt because showing knees is a no-no.

My selfie skills, almost as bad as my Mandarin  skills.