So the train journey to Chang Mai was pretty good, just the odd waking a up to turn over in my narrow bed! Had a lovely waking at 6:45 by the "orange juice" man walking up and down the carriages trying to sell his crappy orange squash. Eventually got up and the train staff turned the beds back into seats. We got in about and hour earlier than expected, Thai trains clearly don't need to run to a timetable, and went to out hotel. As thee are three solo girls on this trip we are taking it in turns to have a room by ourselves. Tonight was my turn and I got a room with no windows! I didn't know how to cope with not sharing a room as I had been for the last 2 and a half months. It was so weird and a bit scary! But free to use the toilet as frequently as I wanted!
We had breakfast in the hotel and I managed to get an exploding bottle of ketchup all over me and another girl in our group. Excellent start to the day! So we decided to all go and visit the Tiger Kingdom which this place where you could visit tiger which were apparently tame enough to touch and weren't drugged. We went in this taxi type vehicle which was like a van with an open back. To was hot and sweaty and pretty dangerous!
It was about a half and hour drive to the Tiger Kingdom and we went in to chose what tigers we wanted to see. I chose the cheapest option which was to see the adult ones. The smaller the tiger, the more expensive it was to touch them. The adult tigers were in an enclosure which everyone could see so we could see what we were getting ourselves in for. It was so weird. I felt really uncomfortable as the tigers were sleeping/maybe on some kind of sedative and the staff were encouraging the visitors to lie on them, or use them as a pillow or hug them. It seen really wrong. The information says that they were not drugged but they seemed so passive. The staff would slap their paws with sticks to make them move into a more photo friendly position which was horrible.
So we queued up and went in the on closure. Our guide would take us around the four adults in the enclosure. The first one who was sleeping against the enclosure wall got his paws slapped to make home move to face us and we were encouraged to take our photos with him. Really weird and we were all about standoffish.
The next tiger was playing in the water and the guide was using a big cat toy to play with her. The females were more playful and the males just slept apparently. It was so close and got splashed a lot!
The next two were sleeping on a deck and we were getting more ok with the idea of posing with them. It was fun and got some good photos.
Looking back I feel really uncomfortable about doing it. The tigers don't want to be doing it :( and there was a lot of tourists there paying good money to keep it going.
After eating out for lunch we went on a guided tour of Doi Suthep temple to watch the monks chanting at the end of the day. We drove up a suicidal road up a steep mountain on a windy road. There were so many scooters with drivers with no helmet and maybe children or another passenger on. It was crazy!
It was a bit gaudy, as I am discovering all temples seem to be! We went in and walked around the exterior of the temple. There were a lot of bells and they would be struck to indicate the start and end of ceremonies.
We went into the inner part of the temple and it was another golden extravaganza! And there were a lot bells decorating the place.
We wrote our names on a roll of fabric which was to be tied around the temple. No idea why!
The monks then started to chant and we watched then chant at the gold inner temple and then went inside into the temple. My favourite monks were two young boys who were not chanting but chatting through it all. Reminded me of being at church and not wanting to be there!
In buddism there is a Buddha for each day to represent the day you were born. Thanks to the iphone I found out I was born on a Friday and found my Buddha.
After we survived the suicide road downhill in the dark we went out for dinner. We went to this weird food court! We had to buy food vouchers which we exchanged for our food. There was so much food to choose from! It wasn't the best meal I've had, but the thai dancers were good entertainment!
After this we rushed our way through the night markets to go and see a ladyboy show. The show was entertaining but very low rent in comparison to the show I saw in manchester! I had an early start the following morning so I headed off to bed.
In the morning I was going to take a thai cooking lesson. We started off by visiting a food market which was cool. The rice stall was my favourite as there was so many different types of rice. The meat stall was my least favourite as the meat was just covered in flies! Vegetarian for me please!
We then went to our class and we got to chose four dishes to cook. I chose a hot and sour prawn soup, phad thai, green curry and coconut sticky rice with mango. It was all amazing and so easy to cook! Need to keep it up when I get home!
After lunch we checked out of our hotel and got in mini buses for our 7 hour journey to Chiang Kong. This is the boarder town between Thailand and Laos. The driver was the worst driver ever. Not hazard perception and no idea about stopping distances. Another suicide ride! We stopped off en route at a cashew factory. I learnt that cashew nuts hand off the bottom of a red fruit and have a black resin inside that is poisonous. The factory tried to make out that they are shelled by hand, but no way. There were two guys shelling them and they were working so slow! There was definitly a mechanised factory line somewhere! I bought some tom yum flavoured cashews though which were great!
We then travels and stopped in Chiang Rai to see the white temple. It was gross. So disgustingly ornate and modern and bizarre. It had lots of statues of modern superheroes and baddies from films and weird skulls everywhere. So grim.
We finally made it to Chiang Kong after some more terrifying driving in the dark and checked into our hotel. It was a tiny town and went to a great restaurant for dinner. This was definitly the best meal id had so far and so much cheaper. I had prawn phad thai (number 2 of the day!) and a big beer all for 135 baht. Really good! I came home and did some skyping and got ready to get up bright and early for our boarder crossing into Laos the next day.
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