6:00AM. Ezra is up – has been for a while. The sun is up. The son is up. The sunrise is beautiful. Music can be heard in the distance welcoming the sun. SmalL birds and such are heard. No roosters here, at least not nearby. Dwana went off to her morning routine of meditation and yoga. When in Sparesort, do as the Sparesortians. We stayed home and made some fruit smoothies and learned how to draw elephants and the shape of the country of Thailand. – a heart with a boot is what we decided. Ezra is still on semi-home bound status and I do not want to go too far away from the house with him. The ants were over-running the kitchen in the morning, so we did a little clean up. When Dwana returned, we did a high-five exchange (a passing of the baton) and I went out for a run to find the southern passage to the roads leading to the Mountains on the East side of Chiang Mai. As I said before, we are about 20km from Chiang Mai, so we don’t really have a view of the mountains directly near Chiang Mai, so I ran south until I could see that view. I was not disappointed. No jungle running, most of these were dirt roads or paved roads. All I had to worry about was a rock poking through the thinning sole of my Native Shoes. I was going to buy some real running shoes her in Thailand, but the ones I checked out were over $100. No thanks. I ran past the Pink Temple and onto a dirt road that led to another village where I saw some rice farmers playing in the muddy ricefields just outside another Buddhist Temple. This village connected to a paved road. I was trying to reach the main 1096 road that traverses the mountains. the views were great and even though the middle of the day was upon me, I did not fell especially hot. Clouds in the sky, and overhanging trees provided shade and the humid feeling of Taman Negara Malaysia is not here in the mountains of Chiang Mai Thailand. Using my phone GPS, I arrived at my turn around point (ROad 1096) and briefly considered going forward. The GPS and google maps showed that the road thinned and then doubled back to where I wanted to go, so forward I went for about 200 meters and then the trail I was supposed to turn left and double back was not there. Here is where things become interesting. Coincidentally, accidentally, ironicadentally, Buddhadentially, on my right were concrete stairs leading up the mountain as far as I could see. I checked the GPS and map and they showed nothing on the right. At this point I was on the edge of the jungle forest and I had no idea where the stairs would lead – So UP I stepped. 300 or so steps later I was nearing the top and I could see that on top was a Buddhist Temple. About 10 steps from the top I see looking down at me two dogs – one white and one black. Now, since I am not running around Alaska worrying about bears, and I am not running around UBUD worrying about scooters or cars, and I am not running through Taman Negara worrying about leeches, the next thing on the list to worry about as I found out earlier on this run when an oversized black dog came charging out of his gate and rushed within meters of me before I shouted him back – the next thing to worry about is dogs. ANd here I had two of them and they were not running away from me and they were not wagging their tails. I stood very calmly and they both came down and sniffed my feet. The white dog (Yin) seemed to give the OK, but the black dog (Yang) sniffed some more like he was not to sure and then they stayed near my feet – blocking my feet from moving on the small steps.Finally I slowly moved my right foot, the one guarded by the white dog and continued up the last few steps to be rewarded with another beautiful Buddhist Temple. This one at the top of a hill overlooking all of Chiang Mai. At the top, the dogs went back and laid down in the sun – their job done. I had the entire Temple to myself. When I looked around after about 5 minutes I could not see any traces of the dogs – disappeared – leaving me with the quietness of the forest and the views of the city to the South, and the mountain tops I hope to summit soon. From my Temple on the mountainside I could look down and see the spires of temples leading all the way to Chiang Mai spaced out about every few kilometers. I selected one to find on my way down, which I did, making this a 4-temple run. The run back was not as fun, wish they had some good public transport around here. Not sure how many kilometers, but my Native Shoes are feeling more and more thin. Ezra fell asleep by 6:30PM, so I guess tomorrow will be another early morning.
oneworldtwokids 