15 kilometres (9.3 mi) from the city of Chiang Mai at the top of a small mountain is the beautiful Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. It’s an ancient Buddhist temple that also has a large statue of the Hindu God Ganesh.

It’s a worthwhile trek from Chiang Mai, and an enjoyable ride on a motorbike up the twisting mountain roads. Being so close to the city the temple is a definitely something of a tourist trap, but one that I think would be a shame to overlook when visiting Chiang Mai.

A long stairway takes you to the temple grounds whereupon you’ll find pagodas, shrines, statues, bells, and a museum. The copper plated chedi (or stupa) is the most holy area of the temple grounds, and almost impossible to photograph for two reasons. The first would be that you can’t really stand far enough back to get it in the shot in a way that really shows how magnificent it is, and the second is the fact that the place is usually so over-crowded with tourists that such a shot would be almost impossible anyway.

I sat down and tried to take the shot today with as few people in it as possible. I sat there for quite some time but was simply unable to have a sufficient opportunity to get the shot I wanted. I snapped this picture really because it was comical how many people were standing there at any given moment, taking very same shot I was trying to take.

As a photographer, I try to look at things in a different way and so as I sat there I snapped a this picture. I didn’t think I would end up featuring this shot, but I like the way it captured all the people taking their own pictures. There are 8 people taking photographs in this picture!

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Stand where this picture was taken using Google street view.

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