1st Jan 2015: New Year with Buddha

What did I do with my New Year's Day? I joined hundreds of people climbing a mountain to reach a temple: Wat Phrathat Doi Kham, near Chiang Mai. In the interests of fairness of representation of the feat, there were steps, then more steps, then EVEN MORE steps but all that effort was worth seeing the temple and 17m Buddha statue, plus the views of course!! 


At the time that I was there, I was the only foreigner in sight. I was both surprised and honoured by the number of bows of respect I received from many Thais who were climbing up to the temple to pray and make offerings.