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So, after falling in love with Chiang Mai, we changed our plans and rather than spending 3 days traveling to get to Vietnam, we stayed where we were.

Spent a lot of time chilling out in the sun, went to the Night Bizarre and a few other markets - just the usual. Minus one day when we paid a bargainous 8 pounds (can’t find the pound sign on this keyboard!) with another couple for a taxi driver to take us round to various animal places.

We went to the Tiger Kingdom, where you can pay to go into little enclosures with tigers. You can choose which age tigers you go and see, so we chose the 4-6 months old babies (surely those ones couldn't kill us) and the big ones.

Before we went in to the enclosure, we had to sign something that basically said if we get eaten by a tiger the Tiger Kingdom isn't liable...wowzer.

It was weird…felt so bloody wrong! There were 3 babies and they were all play fighting, so not too interested in us - thankfully! One of them did reach its claw out for my leg at one point, made me ever so slightly nervous, but it was only a tiger hey.

The big ones made me feel a little more on edge I must admit. There were 3 of them too…not quite as docile as I would’ve imagined. Gulp. It was pretty amazing to be sitting, stroking these big guys. Got loads of pictures…I tried my best to look relaxed, but found it pretty tough when I had a full grown tiger sitting next to me!!!

That was the tigers done, next stop elephants. You get to walk around the camp, feed the elephants and watch them do tricks etc. A few times I turned round and there was a huge elephant just strolling past casually…sure. They did a show, which was really impressive, if a little sick. They did painting, played football, played the harmonica, danced and played some games. Not natural let’s face it, but great fun to watch!

Then it was time for the snake show…we sat in a little seated auditorium. Put it this way, I started off in the front row and ended up in the back. These mental Thai guys did all sorts of tricks with venomous and non-venomous snakes…seriously they must have issues.

Last but not least was the monkeys. As most of my family and friends will know, I’m not exactly an animal lover. But this place made me feel sad. The monkeys had metal chains around their necks tying them onto things so that they couldn’t move very far at all. We watched a little show there as well…one monkey came along everyone in the audience, shook our hand and kissed us on the cheek…gross, but kind of cute.

Treated ourselves to some posh grub on one of our last nights in Chiang Mai, at a recommended riverside restaurant. It was a lovely setting so worth paying slightly more for and the food was really good.

I soon changed my mind when let’s just say for the next 24 hours me and Simon were taking in turns on the toilet. Brill. It took about 3 days to recover. The best bit was the 13 hour train journey from Chiang Mai back down to Bangkok. I can’t explain how sick I felt, like I was going to vom at any point…that feeling combined with the smell of Thai train food was not good, not good at all. That night we stayed in the worst room I think I’ve ever seen, in Bangkok and for the first time in my life I projectile vomited…not quite making it to the toilet for part of it. That woke Simon up.

Thankfully it was time to move on...

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