Thailand Day 6

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What a day! We got picked up at 09:00 and head straight to Tiger Kingdom. Where they house 33 Tigers (& a Lion), though this isn't your normal Tiger centre. No here you get in and Pet the Tigers! Umm, I know what your thinking and I can't discount the use of drugs either (the Tigers, not us, though that would of helped)! As it was all Charlie's idea I let her choose which cage we entered, fortunately she choose the 'Smallest'. This involved us spending 10 minutes with 2 baby Tigers which were only two and a half months old. Though Charlie being Charlie, I had to be first into the Lions Den so to speak. The first one (Nu-lu) was 'feisty' to say the least, in fact when he smelled (intentionally) my feet, I moved fairly sharpish! When stroking the 'kitten' we had to be firm, light touches could be construed as flies landing. Unfortunately Charlie had the correct instinct, that of being timid, however I think at this point Nu-Lu thought that a hundred flies had landed and was not a happy bunny, I'm not going to say Charlie was quicker, but she did manage to move quick enough... Nu-lu's twin La-la was the complete opposite. Let's just say I know from both of our encounters Nu-lu wasn't drugged! It's wrong I know, but we both have Photos of La-la laying in our laps!
From here it was another encounter with animals, this time at the Chiang Mai Zoo, thought the principle reason being Pandas, three of them to be exact. With only 35 in captivity outside of China it seemed too great an appeal. Their enclosures were of a good size and condition. The difference between this Zoo and the Hong Kong Zoo (where we had previously seen Pandas) was that there was no glass screen which enabled us to take better pictures. I even managed to get a rear view of a Panda having a Pooh!
The next stop on our hectic trip was to see the Heoun Huay Kaew (try saying that after a few Chang beers) waterfall. Now I'm not one for waterfalls, but it was pretty enough with a good walk around it. But to ensure I had the protein required for such a walk it only seemed natural to pick up a quick snack. Though Charlie seemed to loss all appetite when I selected Fried Crickets, Bamboo Grubs and Caterpillar Pupae (what's wrong with the woman)! I can't say the Crickets or Caterpillar Pupae were that great, but the Caterpillar Pupae we delicious. The more traditional lunch feast was in a lovely restaurant overlooking the foot of the falls (no creepy crawlies in sight).
I'll now have to say that our driver (Mr Somkid, no really) was great and really polite. Some it must of been really hard for him to mention that we had already gone over our allotted time period! It seems that (once again) there was a mix up between our hotel, ourselves and the driver! Needless to say, we weren't wrong and blamed it fully on the hotel!
With that all sorted out we then headed to our primary stop of the day Doi Suthep. This is a temple on the top of a mountain overlooking Chiang Mai. This is ranked as the top 'attraction' in this area, partly due to the fact that to reach the Temple complex you first have to ascend 304 steps and partly down to it being a pilgrimage site. We had spoken about this not being a race to reach the top and that we would 'endure' the pilgrimage together. Let's just say I made it to the top after Charlie, but let's also make it clear that I took 304 steps, not 152! The Temple itself was what we had come to expect, but the view it supplied overlooking the City was amazing.
We finally (I think I managed to read our drivers mind) we return to the hotel, either just in time (or three hours later, depending on who's story you listen to) for a skirt fitting for Charlie.
The rest of the even was spent once again in the Night Market, grabbing grub (pun intended) ANC having a late night massage!   

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