Our Day in Chang Mai

We woke up this morning around 6:30, and were able to see some of the Thai countryside as we headed into the last leg before Chang Mai.  This was a much more stereotypical picture.  We saw sprawling jungles, mountains, ravines, rice paddies, and some small towns as we passed through.  Jourdan used much of this time to read up some statistics about Thailand, and especially their Lady-Boy population.

Around 8:30 we arrived in Chang Mai (the second largest Thai city- it’s up in the north) and headed to the Empress hotel to eat breakfast, wash up, and get ready to begin the day.  We met our new local guide Arin.  He took us to the Wat Phra That Doi Suthep temple (according to Jourdan- I can’t keep track of this stuff). 

To get to the temple, we had to climb 306 steps, not counting all the steps we had to climb to get to the initial landing.  Along the way, we made friends with some little Asian girls, who despite my best efforts, we were unable to bring them home with us.  The temple was very beautiful, had a great view of the city, and contained ancient relics from Buddha.  While here, I got blessed by a Buddhist Monk (Jourdan decided to stay outside).

After the temple, we did an optional tour that Contiki offers, and headed to The Tiger Kingdom.  This is a place where the Thai’s rehabilitate tigers, and have created a sanctuary. Many of these tigers were at one time wild, and none of them have been declawed.  Jourdan and I went all out and bought the total package.  SOOO worth it.  We were able to touch, handle and play with about 25 tigers.  There were 4 different sizes.  The smallest (2 ½ months old), small (6 months-1 year), medium (1 ½ yrs-3 years), and Big.  It was AWESOME.  Between the two of us, and the professional photographer we took well over 300 pictures.  Check out some of the great pics, but we will probably have an album just from this.

After the Tiger Kingdom, we went back to the hotel for a quick shower and change, and then headed straight out to a traditional Thai cooking class.  On the way, we stopped at a local market to learn about the local Thai foods, and how to buy them.  While here, we picked up some more mangosteens, and we also tried some rambutan, and some Thai curry pastries.  We learned to make spicy and sour soup, pad thai, some chicken and cashew dish and some curry pork dish that I can’t pronounce.  Then we learned about how to prepare sticky rice, and a desert with mango.  It was all very delicious, and spicy. 

Big Momma

After the cooking class, we headed back to the city center.  This was amazing.  At night, Chang Mai changes from a quiet city to a bustling night market.  They set up stall along both sides of all of the streets, and throughout all the open squares.  You could literally buy anything there as long as you are ready to barter with the sellers.  We picked up some Buddha statues for ourselves, some knock off polos for about 6 dollars, and some 80’s clothes for the costume party we have tomorrow night. 

We then went to kill a few hours with some of the people from the tour in a local Irish bar.  Being on a trip with so many different people, we really can experience accents from around the world. Between the Irish, British, Ausies, Kiwis, Canadians and the few Americans,  understanding intoxicated friends get quite difficult. Finally, as it started getting a bit late, we jumped in a Tuk-Tuk to head home.  The driver thought he would be funny (I think because we bartered him down so much) and took a quick detour to a local lady-boy bar.  These lady-boys would actually be very good looking women.  It is pretty crazy.  As they tried to start groping us, and we insisted on not being interested, the driver took us back to the hotel with no further delays or issues.