Chiang Mai

The last stop of my northern journey through Thailand was at the city of Chiang Mai. A relatively small city, but with many temples and lots to do if you're willing to explore just a little. By this stage, I had met up with an English guy named Ian and since our itineratries were fairly similar, we spent most of our time together looking around the province for 4 days.
Temples temples temples (times 4) was about how many we saw in 1 day. By the end of our temple search I was very much done looking around. Chaing Mai is also known for it's night market which is open every night and filled with all sorts of things. I definately left with a slightly lighter wallet and much heavier backpack.
There is also a highly reccomended zoo that Ian and I visited. Unfortunately, nobody told us that you would need a bus to travel around this zoo that is build on the side of a mountain. We litterally spent hours and hours walking up and down this mountain to see different animals. To add to the exhaustion, it rained on us and the map we were given at the entrance wasn't the same as where the actual animals were in the zoo! I haven't added too many photos of animals, but put in some wildlife shots for you to see as the scereny, although difficult to navigate, was very beautiful.
The final day, we went on a trek a couple of hours north Chiang Mai. It was interesting and sad in parts. I think the tour organisers were quite lazy and I was very unimpressed. We took an elephant ride and I felt they mistreated the poor animals. Also saw a village for a supposed 25 minutes, but it was only 5. The trek was rushed and we went white water rafting (my favourite part). We were supposed to get home about 6pm but ended returning closer to 4pm. I guess I can take the beautiful scereny away as a good thing, but overall, I was unimpressed.
Next, it's down to Phuket for the island experience.

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