Chiang Mai: Local Style

This Saturday, 2 of my best friends here in Chiang Mai took me on a tour of their favorite places and places that locals go to that most tourists miss. My tour guides for the day were Gade and Wee. Words can't express how special these friends are to me. They have made my time here in Thailand wonderful and helped me to understand what it means to be Thai and what it means to be a Child of God.

We started out at the Suthep-Pui National Park on the mountain overlooking the city.

Our next stop was this massive tree along one of the paths on the mountain. Gade tells me there used to be another tree here, but that this tree grew around it and then the original tree died and decayed, leaving this giant network of woven roots and trunks.

Above: Wee and Gade climb along the base of the tree. Below: I find a tight squeeze in the tree.

All of these roots or trunks go up and twist into one tall tree- just like we are woven around the image and Spirit of Jesus Christ, reaching upward to the heavens.