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Published: December 19th 2008
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Sunday Night Market
Live orchestra in the middle of the walking street playing Pachebel Canon. They were great! Shopping, music...what more could there be! So, today we are on our way to Laos. We spent the night in a small town called Chiang Khong which is directly accross the Mekong River from the Laos city Huay Xia. We are super excited to get into Laos as we have heard so many great things about it.
We had a long day yesterday taking 2 different buses from Chiang Mai to Chaing Rai and then to Chiang Khong. We got to see the country side during our journey which we did not feel was near as beautiful as the Vietnam countryside. It almost felt abandoned; however, it is Thailands winter (or cold season) in the north and it may not be the harvest season. The fields were plowed and some were set on fire. We would be interested to find out more about the Northern Thailand, but we just didnt seem to have enough time nor did we really want it. We have had such a hard time trying to get back "into the groove" after spending 3 weeks on the southern beaches in Thailand. We flew from Koh Samui to Bankok and the straight to Chiang Mai and truly felt like doing nothing. We didnt
Sunday Night Market
You could barely move! feel like doing any planning and we didnt really have enough time to do a tour because our Thai visa expired in 5 days. Oh and to top it off...we really just felt like being in our own bed with our clothes wherever we want and hang out with our friends and family (yes, work was not mentioned in that list...I cant say we are at that point yet =). At the same time, we know we have to keep treking on because this truly is an trip of a lifetime that we dont want to cut short.
We took a day for reading and planning what to see around Chiang Mai and how we are getting to Laos and what will happen next. We got on a motorbike and had 2 days of sight seeing and shopping around Chiang Mai. There are over 200 temples in Chiang Mai alone so there was lots to see. We picked a few temples to see, some were so touristy and such a money grab, we did not enjoy them at all. The last couple we saw we really enjoyed. One was called Wat Suan Dok and the other Wat U Mong.
Wat Suan Dok had amazing grounds and beautiful architecture, it was all white. Wat U Mong (the forest temple), was a little further from the bussle of Chiang Mai and on large grounds in the forest. There were many different complexes here and some things seemed very old. We saw the monks at work in their daily routine and saw that it was more like a community than a "money grab". This temple had some meditation tunnels beneath a temple. We were told after that these tunnels were only discovered recently and were very old, which you could tell by the rustic inside. We both felt an overall calmness when walking through them...oh and a bit of nervousness as we passed the many dog that seem to live in the tunnels.
The shopping in Chiang Mai is neverending! There are shopping complexes open all day and then night markets open until midnight (or later), all the handicrafts you see throughout Thailand come from this area so they have EVERYTHING. We found it very overwhelming and repeditive. It is really hard backpacking as you have to constantly think about #1 the cost and #2 how the heck are we going
to carry this around for another 7 months OR is it worth paying to ship it home. So, we really didnt buy much at all. We figure that we will come back to Thailand again and when we do, we will make sure to make a trip up North after the beaches just to shop.
Overall, we really dont like being in the big cities. We like to get outside of the city and explore beyond and eat with the locals and see their daily life. Having said that, there are some things that the cities offer that small towns don't. We went to the Chiang Mai Night Safari and had a great time! There are 3 different parts to the park, one loop takes about 40min and you walk by many animals, just like a zoo. The thing that is different though is that it is dark and most of the animals "come alive" at night. The freakiest part was the hyenas...when we walked by them, one was howling at the top of a hill in the compound and the others were pacing in the moat below looking up at us. We truly got an eerie feeling thinking
they were going to jump out (they sure wanted to). The other 2 loops were done on a safari bus where there are NO doors. We were taken through places where the animals can just roam freely; however, the more dangerous animals were confined in some way (or so they should have been). It was the funniest trip ever, we havent laughed that hard in a long time. First of all, the tour guide is Thai and can speak good english, but some times the translations are not the most gramatically correct and end up being quite funny...PLUS, he was a funny guy and was trying to make you laugh. We have included some of his comentating at the bottom of this blog.
The night finished with Trevor and I holding a baby tiger (3 months) and feeding it a bottle. It was the cutest and thing ever! Then we got to see the baby tiger play with a 9 month old Puma...it was pretty evenly matched, they loved the little play. Not sure they will be playing that nicely in a couple more months.
Well, as you know we are STILL behind with our blogs, but we
are working at getting them up to date. We just thought we better start blogging the present instead of waiting for us to get caught up because YES we are out of China, have travelled through Vietnam for 1 month and have now been in Thailand for 1 month. 3 months down...7 to go.
Bye for now!
The Tiger - "the enclosure is 12m wide and he can only jump 11m which makes it more interesting, so us being here right now guarantees you are safe, but if he was to get out, me and him (the driver) will run first. We will save ourselves. Because we will die forsure."
The Tiger - "...they can jump, they can swim, they can run very fast so in the wild if you see one you just let them eat a bit because if you run you will die for sure."
The Black Bear - "...never walk away or run away from a bear for your safety there, but if they have a baby you have to be fast otherwise they will take you forsure..."
The Crocodile - "...stronger than human and also only one bite they
can break your arm for sure. and also, when you see them laying on the land and open the mouth so dont think they are asleep so they always awake so if you come close they will take you forsure so never come close for the crocodile here."
The Maned Wolf - "...the stinky dog...the teeth is so small mostly eat small animals only like rabbit and snake. They can eat big animals but they have to be die first because the teeth are so small. So today we are quite luck because the wind does not come this way because if the wind come this way you have to find something to cover your nose otherwise...oops are they coming out? This one here? I hope not...they are not coming out, otherwise we go in now."
The Lion - "...the lions are 2 males but they are not gay, they are brothers."
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