Day 137: Chiang Mai

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Our first time in chiang mai was brief - we stayed one night before heading to Pai. Our only real activity was going to see Avatar 3D at the mall near the city center. It was pretty friggin sweet. We also explored the city a bit to get an idea of what kind of stuff there is to do. Chiang mai is pretty big, although most tourists just stay near the city center, which is a much more manageable sized square (probably 1 mile each side) surrounded by a moat. There are tons of things to do around chiang mai too, like mountain biking, rock climbing, 4x4 trips, treks, elephant rides, etc. Most of the trips are pretty expensive though. We noted a few must-see's and headed to Pai.

Our second time in chiang mai we were pretty much stereotypical tourists. Our first day we went to the Tiger Kingdom and played with 4 month old tigers. They also had medium sized and adult tigers that you can play with but we wanted to minimize our chances of getting mauled. Some of the big tigers are HUGE - I had no idea they got so big. The little ones seemed pretty harmless, although you're not supposed to touch them on the head. I don't know if that's a tiger thing, or because thailand is a buddhist country and it is a no-no to touch someone's head here.

We liked our tuk-tuk driver from the tiger kingdom so we arranged for him to pick us up the next day for some more of the touristy places. That day we saw an orchid farm, a monkey show and a snake show. Both of the shows were pretty entertaining. The monkeys were pretty well behaved except once one freaked out and looked like it was going to attack this little boy before the trainer yanked him back. The snake show was also pretty cool - although the snakes didn't look very happy. There were a few times where a snake escaped out of the ring and headed under the bleachers, which was a little scary.

After the shows we went to this place called SportX, run by a New Zealand company, which has a few different extreme activities. There is a bungee jump, ATV's, dirtbikes, paintball, and a few other things. We decided to go for the one thing we hadn't done, which was called a Xorb. I think I remember seeing it in a car commercial a few years ago in the States. Basically you get strapped in to this giant inflatable hamster ball and roll down a hill. It was actually pretty darn fun. There was a goat at the bottom of the hill that had to run out of the way to avoid us, and then we ended in a lake. We unstrapped ourselves and got to run around hamster style on the lake for a little while before coming back. Definitely worth it.

The next day we rented a motorbike so I could drive steph to an animal rescue center that she wanted to volunteer at. The traffic is a little hectic so getting out of the city was an adventure. We made it though, no accidents! I said hi to a few of the dogs but then I dropped her off for the day and came back in the afternoon to pick her up. While she was playing with doggies I did some more exploring on the bike, and planned out a little motorbike trip for us the next day.

Our motorbike trip started with more hectic traffic as we headed northwest out of town. We didn't really have a choice but follow the rest of the motorbikes as they rode between cars. Finally the traffic thinned, and the road started to wind up the mountain. After 12 km of curves and great views we came to our first stop, Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep. It is a temple at the top of a mountain that overlooks chiang mai. I counted 312 steps to climb up from where we parked. Supposedly it is one of the most sacred temples in the area. I don't know about that, but there sure were a lot of tourists. For good reason though, because the views are awesome, and all the gold painted buddhas and bells are pretty impressive too. After we had our fill, we headed back down and rode to our next destination: the Chiang Mai Zoo.

The chiang mai zoo is huge, and pretty spread out. I think we ended up walking over 7 km and we didn't even see everything. I was pretty impressed with the number of animals and the quality of the enclosures. We saw hippos, rhinos, tigers, lions, monkeys, porkupines, giraffes, zebras, emus... and of course elephants. My favorite part was in this bird enclosure, which had a bunch of peacocks. One of the males was putting on quite a display for one of the females. I took a video:



On the way out of the zoo there was a "luge" track, with these crappy little three wheeled carts. I decided to go for it, and it was actually pretty fun. They dropped us off 1 km up the hill, and we coasted back to the starting point. I was in front until close to the end, when this little kid went crashing in to me and took the lead.

Last night we went to a Thai boxing match. We had really good seats, one row behind ringside. It was really entertaining. The best part was the headline fight, which pitted a white guy against a Thai guy. Both were pretty big guys - I'd say 220 lbs or so - which was a big contrast to all the tiny fighters that came before them. The white guy seemed like he was winning until he put his head in the wrong place and got a knee to the head. He didn't go out cold, but it was enough to stop the fight. Good times.

In a few hours we catch an overnight train to Bangkok (our 4th time there this trip), where we stay one night, and then we're flying to the Philippines. Sadly, PI will be the last country on our tour before we head home. We decided we'd rather take our time and enjoy more of the 7000 islands than rush to see another country. Indo and Malaysia will have to wait for another trip.

Here's some pictures from our Chiang Mai adventures:

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Comments

[Matt Potterton]

Hey...*psst*....
Bring me home one of those tiger cubs, I want one