24 November 2014. Bhuping Palace

I started out with the idea of tackling a walk I'd read about from Doi Pui to Doi Suthep - about 15km. I made my way to where I imagined the songthaew (red bus) would go from at the North Gate. On my way, I took the chance to drop in to the Wat Phra Singh I had seen last night. It had very well manicured grounds.

I carried on to the North Gate stopping only to record the passing of a rodent that had literally turned his toes up.

When I got to where the songthaews leave from, it seemed life was not as simple as I'd hoped. The best alternative was to red one up to doi Suthet and thenchange to another. So off I went and the change was easy onto aone going to Bhuping Palace - some way short of where I wanted to end up. Arriving at the Palace, it seemed a bit silly not to have a look round. I'm glad I did. It is a summer palace used by the royal family when they visit the North. The grounds where beautiful with lots of roses, geraniums, orchids and begonias. It reminded me in a way of Kew.

Although a tourist destination, it was by no means rammed and I spent about a couple of hours wandering around. By which time it was a bit late in the day to do the Don Pui expedition. In any case, I found that I was feeling a bit sapped of energy and think the lung gunge left by my cold has made me a bit below par.

So I decided to head back to Chiang Mai. This was a bit of an ordeal as the homeward bound songthaew kept saying he was about to leave but never did. In the end it turned out he was waiting for a couple of Chinese girls who were still in the Palace grounds. About 45 minutes later they emerged. Luckily they were very pleasant with excellent English and a reasonably irreverent attitude to their regime.