Chiang Mai

(About a month ago) Martine, Mary and I went to Chiang Mai to celebrate New Years!  We had a four day long weekend, and got to see a lot of really neat things.

Chiang Mai is the second largest city in Thailand.  It's quite far north, so we took a plane there rather than busing it.

While we were there, we got to try out Segways, go ultra-light flying, and pet baby tigers (my third time - I'm like a seasoned professional at petting tigers now.)  We also got a massage from a women's prison center, did a full day of crazy zip-lining, and celebrated New Years at the old moat and city gate of Chiang Mai.  The vacation was extremely busy, but such a blast!

I honestly can't remember the time order of the things we did, so here they are just randomly.  Click the enlarge the pictures.

Martine and I are terrible at keeping the place clean when we room together.

I don't know if I have ever looked more awesome than when I was on a segway.

Some products for browsing and buying at the women's prison center.  The money you give when you make a purchase (food, items, massages) goes towards the inmates when they are released.  This is sort of a work release program, except I believe the women all work and stay in the same immediate area rather than leave to go to work.

Before I was even to zip line once, our guide was messing around and bouncing us.  I was last to go, and he bounced my knee right onto the platform - hard!  It bruised up within minutes and hurt pretty bad.

We did a lot of fantastic zip-lining.  It took the better part of a day with about 18 different lines. There were some where you go double, where we went triple, some where you are propelled downwards, and even one where you are attached by your back.  They call that one "The Superman".  There were two where you could "fight" to race to the next platform, our guides swung us and bounced us, and where we went, The Flight of the Gibbons, even boasts to having the world's longest zip-line in a tropical forest.

Beautiful views from the ultra-light flyer

The ultra-light flying was so much fun!  We were able to see great views from the little planes. One of the islands in the pictures above is called "Turtle Island". We were also able to see some temples. Martine and I went flying together since there were only two planes and Mary had done this before. The ultra-light flyer in a different picture above has Martine in it.

When we were waiting for Mary, we played with the business's multiple dogs (I think they had 6 or 7 in total).  One dog, the Shepard in the video below, showed obvious favoritism when play-fighting with two little puppies. 

The other video below shows Mary taking off in her flyer.

More tigers!

In Chiang Mai they have a placed called Tiger Kingdom.  There, you can pay to spend some time with the tigers.  You are able to select the size of the tiger you see, and since all of us missed the chance to play with babies the first (and second) time, we did the littlest guys this time.

They were some of the cutest things I have ever seen! And soooo soft.  In one of the smallest pictures above, you can see that a tiger came and snuck up onto my lap.  That playful guy also attacked my camera, the lil scamp. 

Beautiful decorations for New Years, and fireworks.  

The fireworks display they had at the old city gate was dazzling. There were fireworks literally going off all around us, and many people also bought and set off their own.  There were also tons of wish lanterns that night.  Simply beautiful!

Last but not least, a knock-off of the beloved childhood toy.  Behold, "My Little Horse".

A Late Happy New Year (and a later Merry Christmas!)

Just wanted to wish all of my family and friends back home a very happy new year, and I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.  Just 2 months/8 weeks/60 days until I am home now!

I also wanted to share the great news that I am officially done all of my courses and course work!  No more school for me...at least not for a while!  It will be so nice to be able to relax a bit more, and have time to see a bit more of Bangkok on the weekends before I head back home to Winterpeg.

Khao Yai - National Park and World Heritage Site

A while ago (since I am behind on my adventure postings) me and a few other people (Mary, Martine, Jenette, Tara, and Kristie) visited Yhao Yai - a national park in Thailand and a world heritage site to boot!

When living in Bangkok you really enjoy the few times that you can get out into nature.  Khao Yai is a beautiful forest just a couple of hours away.  It had great hiking and wildlife spotting trails.  We all had a fantastic time and got to see some pretty cool things.

The first thing to talk about is probably the creepy crawlies.  We saw a whole lot of really really weird things while in the park (and caves).  Things called scorpion spiders and tree leeches (actual leeches that suck your blood.....but live on the land!) and all sorts of other scary looking things too.

A tree leech stuck onto a leech sock.

These freaky looking things are both spiders.  The one on the right is called a scorpion spider, and I don't remember the name of the spider on the left... but I do remember that it was huge.

We also got to see some less scary looking animals like gibbon monkeys and deer.  Our guide was very, very knowledgeable.  During our trek he would once in a while stop, listen, and tell us which birds were making which sounds.  I also once randomly, and jokingly, pointed to a plant and asked him what it was and  he was able to ramble on about what it is called, where it is found, and it's medicinal purposes!  We also came across a snake in the tree - I forget what it is called but our guide said it was very poisonous.  Luckily we saw the snake before we crashed or walked through the tree as it was right on our trail.

We also saw bats.  Lots and lots of bats exiting a cave at night - it was spectacular!

Unfortunately, we never did see a tiger or elephant.  We did, however, come across a lot of fresh elephant crap, and some elephant prints that our guide said looked relatively new.

Other than that we saw a lot of really beautiful scenery and nature.We went up to the top of a lookout tower and saw some cool toucans and water snakes swimming in the lake across from us.  We saw (and climbed) some huge trees, and also made our way to a couple of waterfalls. 

And we of course found time to swim in our hotel's oddly cold pool.