Doi Suthep temple and Hmong Tribal Village tour - a Review

I joined the above half day tour by Chiang Mai Budget Travel on 5 Feb 2015.

The mini van that picked me up from the hotel took us on a 1 hour journey to Hmong village. Once again, there were 12 guests, with the driver and a tour guide. We went up through the winding road of a mountain so it was a bit dizzying.

Hmong people are originally from Myanmar, they are I think considered as low class people in Myanmar and is prosecuted. The people who live in Thailand are now accepted officially as Thai people. Here we were only given 30 minutes, which was pretty enough if you don't waste it spending it window shopping at the stalls and straight ahead inside the village to go to the water fall part, like I did.

Part of the village

A bit of walk further in to the village, I found the entrance to the flower park, where you can see opium flower, which used to be the main source of income (from what I heard from the guide, if I'm not wrong) and a small water fall. It costs only 10 baht.

Opium flower

The small Doi Pui waterfall

The dam that contained the waterfall water?

Then we drove about 30 minutes to arrive at Doi Suthep. There was a legend involving a white elephant that carried a buddha statue ordered by a king, the elephant stopped at this particular spot, circled three times and dropped dead, so the king decided to build a temple there thinking that this was where the buddha statue wanted to stop.
Entry fee is 30 baht for foreigners (Thai nationality is always exempted from temples fees), plus a 20 baht cable car fee. But you can always opt for the 306 steps Naga stair instead of the cable car.
The site isn't big but it is one of the most famous one in Chiang Mai judging from many tours that go there. But in my opinion, there is nothing really spectacular here. 

One of the statue in front of the temple

The white elephant monument

Behind this gate is the temple

The gold coated pagoda

People walking around this narrow pathway while chanting prayers

Few of buddha statues that surround the golden pagoda

at the temple complex

View point from the temple of Chiang Mai city

Stairs going up and down to the temple

Some of chiang mai style goods that are on sale on the site

If you are tired of seeing temples and buddha images, I suggest you avoid this tour and opt for flight of gibbon (going to gibbon forest) and do other more physical stuff like parasailing. The only reason I took this tour was because I didn't get to find out of other more adventurous stuff you can do in Chiang Mai. I booked everything online. When I found out from brochures at the hotel, it was too late as I only had 2 full days in Chiang Mai.