Wat Pha Lat

This guide to Wat Pha Lat, the forest temple on Doi Suthep above Chiang Mai, begins with a wandering white elephant that King Kue Na, around 1355, set loose carrying a relic said to be a bone of the Buddha, and the resting spot it left halfway up the mountain. For generations pilgrims climbing to the summit shrine stopped here to rest, until a paved road reached the mountaintop in 1935 and the foot traffic dried up. Listen for the stream still falling over the rocks beside the old stupas.