post i wrote last friday: happy birthday, buddha!

soooo last night was crazy. today is buddha's birthday, which is a big deal. there have been more orange-clad monks running amok in sankamphaeng than usual this week in preparation for the shabang. last night, we decided to participate in the thoroughly exhilarating custom of climbing the mountain right by chiang mai that bears the city's largest wat (temple) at its top. we left sankamphaeng with the english teacher whose classes we teach throughout the week and a literal truckload of byu/utah farangs around 6:30pm. not to foreshadow or anything, but we didn't get to bed until after 4am. yay! anyway, it took almost an hour to get into the city and park, and then we began our walk. it's eight miles from the base of the mountain to the wat complex, and we had to walk quite a while before we even got to the base ; )

there were SO MANY PEOPLE.

we couldn't believe how many people were going to climb this mountain in the dark (okay, so there was a full moon), and many of them were super old or young. a few feebler souls ; ) rode up in the "rot dengs," or red trucks that are the public transportation here, but i don't even know how they were able to force their way through the massive throng of sweaty bodies. it was just a never-ending worm 30-40 ft wide and miles and miles long of short dark-haired thais who sincerely enjoyed nick's presence. we were quite the anomaly. apparently the coolest thing to do was to sneak up behind nick and have a picture taken next to the freak. so funny. every time. for hours and hours. aside: nick caused a bike accident today at our local wat because the guy was staring at him instead of at the table in front of him. good times.

anyway, it wasn't just the colossal amount of people that was so cool. there were also hundreds of people along the way handing out FREE water, pork and sticky rice, fish soup, jasmine ice cream!, juice, etc. in short, it was way cooler than a marathon, and not nearly as taxing. there were also several groups of people doing it together, such as universities and youth groups, who would chant and sing and clog the road even more. aaalso, there were processions of super old people with flowers and monks with gongs and floats and mobile shrines. add to all of that the random trucks with towers of speakers that would inch their way through the crowd blasting music of every variety (spiritual, chanting, karaoke) every once in a while, as well as the several booths of extra awesome food for sale if the sticky rice wasn't enough, thai orchestras of kids playing traditional instruments they all learn in school, occasional shrines, and quick-stop massage tents, and you have quite the party. as one of our farang fellows said, you kind of had to be there to understand. i can't say i've done anything like it.

fast forward a few hours to the arrival at the wat complex. it is maaaaassive, and the number of lawn chairs set up for foot massages exploded ; ) and remember, there were still thousands of little bodies swarming around the whole time. but once you get to the complex, you are by no means done. if you want to go the wat itself, there are still a ton of stairs to climb--and why on earth would you make that ascent and not go to the wat?? one of the byu kids had bought a giant paper lantern, so once we'd gotten to the wat, we released the lantern at the wall overlooking the city, and it was so cool. see fabulous pictures below.

the wat doi suthep is incredible; that's all i can say. every wat here is incredible, but doi suthep is breathtaking. and SO MANY PEOPLE!

haha, i just can't get over how many humans were there. we hung out up top for a little over an hour, probably, but i have no idea. when we finally began our descent, our fellows decided the walk down was not happening, so we hailed a rot deng, but this might have been a mistake. the road was still just as crowded with people climbing up as it had been hours before with no signs of letting up--apparently the worm lives and thrives for about 20 hours, and we were among the early birds--that it probably would've been faster to walk. we even sat with the truck turned off for over an hour, sweating in the dark at 2am. delish. it all worked out in the end, though, and we glided (glid?) into our driveway, to the three dogs' panicky excitement, at 3:45, juts as meh was beginning the day's preparations. she promptly sent us to bed and forbade us to get up for the 5:30 trip to wat bannoi down the street. she met feeble protest. we got to go this afternoon, anyway, and right this moment, we're about to head for the 6:00 festivities. [editor's note: it was cool. lots of incense, lots of chanting. we love thailand!]

tchau!