Asia Day 10-- chaing mai

Woke up at 600am, mom showered, i packed my bags and we headed downstairs by 630 am for our driver to pick us up and bring us to the flight of the gibbon. we ate a luna bar for breakfast along the way to another hotel to pick up a family originally from virigina but living in manila who is in town visiting their eldest daughter and husband here in chaing mai. mom and dad and two brothers 15 and 13 were going to experience the gibbons.

along the way, we watched a safety video for the ziplining-- no doing the caribeaner, legs up and run into the stopping platform, and i dont remember the oter two. oh well, i'm still alive to write about it so they must not be that important. the driver then put in avatar to watch along the hour commute. i tried to sleep. upon arrival, we were able to use the toilet and put our bags in a locker-- only bringing with a camera. then we got fitted in our harnesses—boy how fun those are. we also got a doo rag and helmets.

then we boarded in the van for a five minute ride to the starting point. we disembarked and started our trek-- I in my havanah sandals hiking through the forest!!Rachel brown you should be proud :-) they held up marvelously. we then did 21 ziplines throughout the rainforest including the longest zipline in a rainforest in the world at a quarter mile long. it was definitely an exhilerating experience. we even did a zip line where we were attached from behind on a longer rope and we just had to run and jump off the platform and at the end we had to grab onto the rope web and climb up to the platform. little dude defintely got stuck and Tata our fearless leader had to go out to save him. there were a couple ziplines that two people went at the same time too. ½ way through our journey we stopped and entered the gibbon zone. there are three gibbons that inhabit the area and they are very territorial. infact we had to back off as they were getting angry we were there watching. there were a couple shaky bridges we had to cross high above the rainforest floor and we were repelled down twice before completing the three hour rainforest zipline.

we were then served lunch—chicken, veggies and white rice. i had a coca cola light (thought of kirsten-- it definitely tastes different than diet coke), and then we were off in the van to hike up the seven tiered water fall of the town. it was quite gorgeous, and a lot of steps. worth it to see the top though.

after climbing down we were given local fruit tea and a local showed the 13 year old lil dude how to do magic trick with a string and a pop can. then we boarded the van for the hour long trek home getting us home about 2pm. of course we had to have our driver bring us to an atm so we could pay for the 1000baht zipdrive of the professional pictures along the journey.

then we stopped at our hotel and embarked on our afternoon adventure of going to the tiger kingdom, and the temple on the hill before flying out tonight. one of the hotel personel booked us a private car for 1000 baht to drive us and stay with us. Hahn did a great job. we got to the tiger park where we had to do all 4 tiger sizes and get a professional photographer with us for the baby tiger cage which ended up costing 108US$. oh well, when am i ever again going to pet a tiger..... we started in the small tiger cage. those tigers were about 5 months old and were still huge. very tired guys, they were sleeping most the time. they like their bellies rubbed and we have to approach them from behind. definitely surreal being in a cage with live, tigers. these tigers were tamed and have been around humans all their life. still scary. the medium cats were about a year old and the large cats were about 2 years old. they would howl and it was rather intimidating. pictures were from more of a distance with these guys. then after surviving those two we went and saw the baby tigers a month to two months old. the first couple we saw were sleeping but the next two came and crawled all over us. we had a professional photographer for this cage. unfortunately those pictures are on a CD and i do not have a device with a CD drive with me to check them out. they should be very cute though. then after getting our cd our driver hahn brought us to the temple on the hill. 11 km up this winding road built by monks over 5 months. craziness. this temple is known as the white elephant temple and legend has it a white elephant belonging to the ruler back in the day found the ideal spot for the temple. there was a giant gold statue of a building inside the middle of it and there were monks blessing people around the perimeter. we took our pictures and saw the overlooking view of chaing mai before buying some thai corn on the cob and german sausage which ended up being filled with rice and meat. hahn then delivered us back to our hotel by 630 where we went across the street, andrea got an hour long foot massage and mom who originally wanted a manicure—but there was no one around that could give one got a head neck and shoulder massage. total—280 bahts, about 8.50$ for both. the foot massage was amazing!!Steph mason, i hope that is something you need to practice.

after the hour long massages we went to our hotel and ordered pad thai chik (pad thai with chicken) which was absolutely delicious and only 120 bahts for everything drinks included –4$ for dinner for two. then a tuk-tuk (3 wheeled taxi) was waiting to bring us to the airport for the next leg of our journey.

we plan to sleep somewhere for a few hours inside the bangkok airport then fly to bali at 6am. should be an adventure!!