{"id":539,"date":"2015-10-02T20:50:52","date_gmt":"2015-10-03T02:50:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dltwt.com\/?p=539"},"modified":"2015-10-03T08:46:59","modified_gmt":"2015-10-03T14:46:59","slug":"the-white-elephant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/?p=539","title":{"rendered":"The White Elephant"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Friday, \u00a0we visited\u00a0the Hmong\u00a0mountain\u00a0village tribe overlooking Chiang Mai.\u00a0 The gardens were great, many crafts were for sale and there were some interesting sights.\u00a0\u00a0We bought some beautiful silver and jade bracelets along with\u00a0several very\u00a0elaborate \u00a0Hmong traditional hats.<\/p>\n

We then toured Chiang Mai’s most auspicious gold temple called Wat Pratat Doi Suthep\u00a0(aka the White Elephant Temple) high on a mountain overlooking the city.\u00a0 Legend has it that Chiang Mai was not prospering after a king had designated it as a special place.\u00a0 As a result, he sent his white elephant to roam the area alone for 7 days\u00a0to designate the location of a temple so that the residents might be blessed.\u00a0 On the 7th day after climbing the mountain, the elephant turned around 7 times and died. \u00a0The resulting temple is sheathed in gold.\u00a0 Chiang Mai residents, after visiting the temple, were then blessed and subsequently became very prosperous.<\/p>\n

We enjoyed a truly local Thai dinner with low tables on this second floor restaurant.\u00a0 The restaurant signage was only in Thai and we were\u00a0clearly the only foreigners dining there.\u00a0\u00a0There was no floor underneath the tables so you dangled your feet.\u00a0 Our young waitress (with no English skills)\u00a0handed us the menus, immediately sat on the floor & didn’t get up until we ordered everything we needed (She upsold us to 4 dishes). The meal was spicy and great ($15 including beers!)<\/p>\n

\"Garden<\/a>
Garden at the Hmong \u00a0mountain tribe village<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Chair<\/a>
Chair at mountain village<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Carved<\/a>
Carved chair head<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Interesting<\/a>
Interesting fruit (very airy with small hair-like spikes).\u00a0 It is considered the “male fruit”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"White<\/a>
White Elephant temple<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"One<\/a>
One of many Buddhas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/a><\/p>\n

\"White<\/a>
White Elephant Temple<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Naga<\/a>
Naga (protective dragon).\u00a0 This one was called \u00a0called “mom”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Great<\/a>
Great wood carving produced by the Chinese<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Naga<\/a>
Naga & Friends<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Dangling<\/a>
Dangling Feet at the local restaurant<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Fish<\/a>
Fish over wood burning stove on our table<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Friday, \u00a0we visited\u00a0the Hmong\u00a0mountain\u00a0village tribe overlooking Chiang Mai.\u00a0 The gardens were great, many crafts were for sale and there were some interesting sights.\u00a0\u00a0We bought some beautiful silver and jade bracelets along with\u00a0several very\u00a0elaborate \u00a0Hmong traditional hats. We then toured Chiang Mai’s most auspicious gold temple called Wat Pratat Doi Suthep\u00a0(aka the White Elephant Temple) … Continue reading The White Elephant<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Si9J-8H","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=539"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":579,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions\/579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}