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".