The overnight train ride to chiang mai was an interesting experience, as I have never formally taken a long distance train ride. We were unable to book a sleeper car, so we were forced to sit in the upright seats. The seats offered plenty of leg room but only reclined a few degrees, making sleeping comfortably an difficult task. The train bounced, shook, wobbled and teetered back and forth the whole way. Waking up at about 8am I head to the food cart for breakfast and am startled to hear "rock you like a hurricane" blasted through the speakers. 2 good ole boys sitting down drinking beers, which turned out are from Louisiana, requested the classic rock. Several more hours we arrive in Chiang Mai. A city highly recommended by all travelers. Chiang Mai is probably the cheapest city in the country, with a more authentic and casual thai atmosphere. We find a hostel in "old city" which is the historical district with old temples, museums and plenty of backpackers. The old city district is actually surrounded by a moat. It's pretty cool. There are still walls and remains of defense structures built over 400 years ago.
Restless from the long journey we settled for a wester restaurant for a big meal (one with a logo of a cowboy riding and elephant). With a good protein foundation we stroll around the city and get our bearings set. Later that night we head to the reggae bar littlerally a walls jump from our hostel. After a couple hours of good drinks and good jams, Sam jokingly said we should go to the club. Before he knew it I had a tuk tuk arranged to take us (sam, me, and 2 girls we met from Ireland). Recreating his suggestion, but just finishing reading "Yes Man" he was obliged to go. We were dropped off at an authentic thai club, and we for sure were the only westerners. The music was great but no one was dancing. Everyone was huddled in small groups around a table with a bottle of johnny walker taking shots with little mingling. Feeling ambitious we felt we could liven up the atmosphere. We snaked our way to the middle and started dancing and trying to pull people into our party. Some were definitely not having it while most just laughed and welcomed us to their huddle.
Quick funny story: red trucks, as they are commonly called, are basically taxi trucks that take you around the city for 20-30baht ($.60-$1). We were eating breakfast sitting streetside at a table when we hear a quick beep beep. As we look up. A guy in a red truck popped his head and arm out of the window- smiles and says "Hey, where you go?" this may sound simple and dumb but the fact that we were litteraly sitting down eating and he tried to pull us in, cracked us up. "Where you go?" became a catch phrase for the rest of the trip.
The next day we (Matt from SF and Sam from London) set off for tiger kingdom, a place where you can get into the cage with tigers and pet them. We negotiated a 200 baht tuk tuk ride, what we though was a good deal. We didnt realize how far it was. 45 minutes is too long to be in a hot open air tuk tuk with two other dudes. We arrived warmed welcomed to a clean theme park like facility. As soon as you walk in you see the large tiger cage. Three large majestic striped cats playing with each other and sunbathing. It was already cool to be this close. At the front counter there were several tiger packages: large, medium, small and smallest tigers available to interact with. It was kind of weird how they "packaged" tigers buy I went with the large and smallest combo for 850 baht ($27). We get a quick briefing: no sudden movements, don't touch head or feet, don't approach from behind, don't be stupid...then we entered the tiger den. The tigers were lying down peacefully and the trainers encouraged you to rub their bellies. We had 10 minutes with three large tigers to rub and take photos. The tigers didn't do much more than sleep. There are rumors that sedatives are used but the trainers deny them saying they are born into captivity around people and are use to human interaction. I truly want to believe that. Next was smallest tigers. These were only 3 months old, the trainers said they sleep 18-20 hours a day. They were so cute and cuddly. They literally sat you down and put a tiger in your lap. You could touch the small one's face and feet as they can't bring about much harm yet. My tiger started to wake up and wanted to chew on my finger, I wanted to let him but the trainer insisted not and gave him a chew toy. The tiger experience was amazing, well worth it.
On the way back we stopped by a driving range we happened to spot and hit a couple buckets of balls. Felt good to hit something. My swing wasn't all that terrible making me anxious to play at home when it warms up. The rest of the day we relaxed. I later met up with Jessica, a beautiful girl originally from Canada, living and going to school in Orlando. We met in Bangkok and again in Koh Phangan. Crazy how our trip has been so similar. We grabbed some drinks and roamed around the night bazaar getting lost in all the shops and kiosks. The shopping in Chiang Mai is cheaper with varied authentic products.
Nice post thanks for sharing...
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