Chiang Mai

Flew again on a plane that had only 4 people, Kyle’s backpack even got its own windowseat. Arrived at night and had about 4 full days to take in the city. Checked in, then headed out to the Sunday Night market, loads of people, food, local goods, music etc. Chiang Mai has tonnes of stuff to do, 4 days would not be enough.
First day, went to the Tiger Kingdom, didn’t know what to expect, but pretty cool place, paid about $50 and chose to hang out with the smallest tigers, and the biggest they had. You get about 15 minutes with each. They said they don’t drug them, and tigers sleep 18hrs per day, and that’s about what they did while we were there, but they would wake them up when we came in, pretty lazy animals. We were laying with a big cat, when it was sleeping, and the guy there slapped a bush in front of its face to wake it up, pretty intense when it looks around thinking you did something to it, ha ha. Overall, pretty friendly.
Next day, we decided to live like monkeys, and take a tour called Jungle Flight zipline, supposed to be the longest in asia. Had to wear cool hairnets, but the ziplining was exciting. The longest line was 300metres and all are pretty high up in the jungle. But there were a bunch of 150-180m lines as well. A few drops around 50-80m where they pretty much let you free fall until they lock the carabineer. Had to deal with a typical American on the tour, one time he got an elbow to the head as he crashed into the platform, everyone admitted after they enjoyed seeing that, ha ha. Later had some “sodas” with a few people we met on the tour.
Third day, went to BaanChang Elephant conservation Park. Essentially at this park, each elephant has 1 Mahout (pretty much the elephants fulltime caregiver and buddy, they take care of the elephant 24/7 every day, no days off, 3hrs of sleep per night, so a huge life commitment to become one of these). So each person has built a good relationship with their own elephant. We signed up to be a Mahout for the day. Picked up a lot of bananas on the way, got there, the owner told us all about his park, and how it came to be etc. Then we fed them breakfast, the little baby took quite a liking to me wrapping its trunk around my neck. They won’t put seats on elephants back, as not natural, so you have to ride with nothing, so we learned how to do that. Then ate, and hopped on for a trek through forrest. Kyle got a huge mama elephant with a baby attached by chain, she didn’t seem to like him too much, the whole trip growling, farting, disobeying. Luckily the Mahout was there to guide the “naughty” elephant as they call it. My elephant wasn’t bad, but enjoyed scratching its a$$ on every second tree. After a walk, the elephants needed a bath, so we headed to their “tub” and rode them in, one Mahout rode around on a little elephant and could pull its ears a certain way and it would spray like a supersoaker on command. Pretty funny, but gross when you get sprayed in the face with that water! We scrubbed them, and got off, showered up, and that was the end. Elephants eat 300kg of food per day! So you can imagine how much drops out during the day as well : ).
Last day in Chiang Mai, I wanted to learn how to cook some Thai food, so I made Kyle come along, and we learned how to make a bunch of good local eats, but had to cook in about 35degree heat, and then had to eat the food we cooked. Washed it down with a cold Big Chang beer, and all was well.
Kyle ended up sniffing out some Stanley Cup Playoffs...of course! We coaxed a Scottsman out to watch game 7 of Montreal vs. Washington, was good to see as brought a bit of home in the mix. Good for the Canadiens!
From Chiang Mai we flew to Bangkok to meet up with Kyle’s sister Kendra. We flew in around the same time, so picked her up at midnight, and were almost blinded by her absolute Canadian whiteness! Ha ha. Went to hotel, then out for some cold beers, and local food.