Chiang Mai II

In the immediate aftermath of my visit to Wat Doi Suthep, Bond and I decided to head to the King's palace which sits about 4 kilometers up the mountain from the temple.

It is open to the public during most of the year, only being closed during the short period of time the royal family visits. The big draw here, aside from nationalist sentiment, is the flower gardens.

I love flowers. I love to look at them, to notice their intricate parts that come together in a visually pleasing whole. When I had a different camera, I would take close-up shots of flowers I liked. My new camera is a little more finicky about such things, but I still get the pictures in.

So, without further ado, onto the flowers:

 I tried to capture the vibrant colors as best I could. Some of the pictures didn't turn out due to the intensity of the sun. Nevertheless, I think that the pictures above give some representation of the multitude of flowers available there.

One area I did skip were the rose gardens. Not a huge fan of roses.

Here I am by the pond. Notice the Buddhist monks in the background taking pictures. They were pretty funny. Both from different areas of the country, they came to Doi Suthep to visit the temple with a group of followers from their home temple.

Anyways, flowers were nice. That's all I have to say about that.