Tourist Trap
This is the hill village that the road gets you to. Being that the road gets you there's it's become heavily tourist influenced, so it's not really a good representation of what life was like for the hill people--or as it is now, if you were to take a jeep further into the interior. I'd be tempted to do that some other time.
Hill Village
This is a more traditional example they've kept around to make some more money off the tourists to see it. I'm not going to quibble about a quarter or fifty cents.
Hill Village
Traditional Dress
Yeah, mostly for the tourists.
Crazy Tourists
Looks like some Chinese influence there.
Potpourri
Some kind of Potpourri, I thought.
School/Field
That's how you know this isn't a *really* poor village.
Hill Village
Hill Village
Hill Garden
They charged separately to get into this garden area.
Hill Garden
Hill Village Temple
Hill Garden
Working for a living..
The girl there chased my friend and I for a little while until it was clear that we weren't falling for it.
Minibus
The day after this excursion, my friend and I actually reserved a minibus to take us around all day, so he'd wait for us and stuff. Convienient, and actually no more expensive than renting a car, so, works for me.
Summer Palace
The queen actually still really likes this place and uses it during the summer. You'll see the roses, orchids, and other elaborate landscaping.
Summer Palace
Summer Palace
Summer Palace
Summer Palace
Now, that's a big tree.
Summer Palace
Me and Pond
The pond and related work was done for the queen as a birthday present from a few years ago.
Wood Carving
This is an example of the elaborate wood carving that you can have done/get in northern Thailand. And it's really far less expensive than you'd think. I'd wager $1000 or less for that piece.
Giant Bamboo
I actually had to cut off a good bit of the bamboo at the bottom in order to get the tops into the picture. Should have gone up to do a trunk perspective shot, but didn't think of it at the time.
Temple Bells
We're now at the main northern temple. The style is somewhat different...
Offering
A good summary of the Buddha positions can be found here: <a href="http://seasiancrafts.com/spiritworld/buddha.htm#mobi>Meaning of Buddha images</a>
Not a Buddha
The chubby "Buddha" popular with westerners, is, as I learned, not an actual image of Buddha. It's one of a monk who came later, and in order to become less distracted with earthly pleasures and what not, got fat, and now he's happy to be this way.
Northern Temple
You can see here that while the attention to detail is still there, the type of detail is different. Some things have larger features.
Chedi
Now that's some really heavy gold leaf.
Buddha positions
These are the primary Buddha images, though there are some which aren't described in the previous link. The offering things are in front of the images, and each one corresponds to a day of the week, except there are two for Wednesday. You would normally either donate for the one for your birthday, or just go down the line for all of them.