August 30 (Thursday)
Denied
One of the things on our to-do list for Chiang Mai was hiking around Doi Inthanon, the highest mountain in Thailand. Doi Inthanon is located about 37 miles outside Chiang Mai, so our best option for getting out there seemed like it would be as part of a tour group. Luckily, our hotel had representatives for tour operators in the lobby, so we headed down to see what we could do. Unfortunately, we were too late to book anything for Thursday, but we did set something up for the next day. The woman offered us some other tours she could set us up with today, but breakfast now seemed like a higher priority.
We ate at the hotel restaurant both out of convenience and because it was within range of the hotel's Wi-Fi. By the time we'd finished we had picked our first destination for the day: Tiger Kingdom. This was actually one of the things the tour lady had suggested, so we went back to her and she arranged for a van to take us over.
Tiger-drunk
When you get to Tiger Kingdom you're quickly presented with a decision: which of these lethal killing machines do I want to play with? They break it down by big, medium, small, and smallest. We opted for a big/small/smallest combo because huge tigers are obviously awesome, and little tigers are adorable, but medium tigers? Boooooooring. After we'd signed some waivers, forked over the cash, and read an almost suspicious number of signs about how they don't drug the animals, our turn was up.
The smallest tigers were first. After removing our shoes, washing our hands, and being instructed to always approach from the rear, we were allowed in. These little guys were fairly active, but were way more interested in playing with each other than with us. That's fine though, because they were super fun to watch. There were also a few that were more tuckered out which prompted one of the handlers to tell us to use them like pillows. On the one hand, this meant putting my face in pretty much the perfect spot to get mauled, but on the other: tiger cub pillow. Soon after we were ushered out and allowed to choose our next size of tiger.
As we were making our way toward the small tigers we ran into some other Americans for the first time on the trip. They were from New York and were doing pretty much the same thing we were: two weeks split between Chiang Mai, Bangkok, and Phuket. That was about the extend of our chit-chat though, because it was time for more tigers. We got to keep our shoes and grubby hands for the small tigers, but we did get an extra warning to always pet firmly. Apparently if you're too gentle they can think your hand is a bunch of flies and take a swipe. The heat was keeping these tigers relatively sleepy, so the drill was much the same: sidle on up and make with the petting. This time when the guide suggested doing the tiger-pillow routine I had no hesitation. I mean, yeah, these guys were probably even better equipped to separate my head from my neck, but I was tiger-drunk.
Last up were the big tigers and they were definitely not mislabeled. These guys are put-a-saddle-on-and-ride big. They were possibly even lazier than the small tigers which meant, you guessed it: time to drape ourselves all over them. They eventually led us over to another area of the enclosure where one of the tigers was more awake. He mostly wandered where he pleased, but the handlers were able to guide him around so that we could get some pictures with the big guy.
After we got our photos we helped some other tourists take theirs and ended up striking up a conversation. They (two guys and a girl) were from the UK and they were in for a rather longer vacation (three or four weeks, I believe). We kept chatting with them until we were at the exit at which point bid farewell, boarded our van, declined the driver's offer to stop by the snake farm or shooting range, and headed back for town. During the drive there was a bit of rain, but it stopped before we got back so our streak of not getting rained on held out.
Denied Again
One of the things on our to-do list for Thailand was to get a Thai massage and this seemed like as fine a time as any to do it. There are massage parlors on nearly every street, but one in the guidebook happened to catch our eye: the Chiang Mai Women's Correctional Institution. The prison has a program to teach inmates a trade and one of those trades just happens to be massage. The upshot for tourists is that you can get a cheap massage and aid in a prison rehabilitation program. Win-win! We tried to instruct the guy driving us back to town to drop us at the women's prison for a massage, but what he apparently got out of that was, "take us to whatever massage parlor gives you a commission." Thankfully finding a tuk-tuk driver that did know the place was easy enough. Unfortunately, it turned out that they were closed that day. The woman behind the counter said they'd be open tomorrow though, so at least we had that.
Small World
It was getting to be about lunch time and WikiSherpa didn't list much in the area, so we decided to see what we could find for ourselves. We wandered up the street and back and settled on a small place that happened to be next to a snooker club (this detail sticks with me because I think "snooker" is a funny word). While we were eating a white guy in slacks and a dress shirt walked into the back of the shop, which seemed a bit odd, but maybe it was a delivery or something. Slightly odder was when he came back out and started relaxing and reading a newspaper. Toward the end of our meal he happened over and asked us how everything was and then where we were from. It turns out that he's from Mississippi and is in Thailand teaching English. The restaurant is his girlfriend's and they both live in the apartment above it. Today was apparently our day for running into Americans.
Turning a Negative Into a Positive
After lunch we wanted to head to the Tribal Museum, so we found a taxi and set off. The museum is located a little ways outside the city and, when we got there, we found out that it was closed. The driver apologized and took us just up the road to the Tribal Village Museum, which turned out to be sort of like Colonial Williamsburg only small, shabby, and entirely devoid of people. After a quick lap we headed back to the car where the driver apologized again and offered to take us somewhere else.
We decided to hit two more wats: Chiang Man, which was on the quiet side and Wat Chedi Luang, which was rather impressive. The grounds here consisted not only of several buildings, but also quite a few statues.
Shoppin'
By the time we'd finished with the wats it was getting to be evening, which meant that our next stop was the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar, a huge collection of vendors located just a few minutes from our hotel. We started to do a bit of browsing, but dinner time was rapidly approaching and no one wants to shop on an empty stomach so we decided to check out the restaurants that lined the perimeter of the market. There was a huge variety, but the one that really caught our eye was O'Malley's Irish Pub. I mean, an Irish pub in northern Thailand? This has to be like if a guy who visited Ireland once described it to another guy who then opened a restaurant, right? Wrong. This place was pretty legit. They even had Guinness on tap. Having CNN on the TVs and American Top 40's on the radio was a bit discordant, but you can't have everything.
Now that we were all full of food (stew for me and fish & chips for Charlie, if you were curious) it was time to do some shopping. Actually, it was time to see a bunch of ladyboys handing out flyers for a cabaret show, THEN it was time to do some shopping. The market had all sorts of souvenirs (jewelry, carved statues, t-shirts, scarves, cookware, soap, candles, etc), so just checking out all of the stalls was pretty fun. Buying stuff ended up being pretty fun too because this was the sort of place where haggling is expected. This was especially novel for me because I'd never really haggled before. I mean, sure, I'd watch Pawn Stars and yell at the TV like everyone else, but it's not quite the same as the real thing. It took a couple of purchases to get warmed up, but by the end of the night I think I was haggling capably. There's definitely something fun about getting them down to the price you want.
After we'd gotten enough souvenirs we started making our way back toward the hotel. This included a stop for gelato, a little old lady who would (gently) hit Charlie and drag him back every time he tried to walk away from her stall, and a walk through a rather "colorful" neighborhood. Let's just say that I don't think all those girls were standing on the corner because they were waiting for their mother to give them a ride to bible study. Once we got back we spent a bit of time relaxing and checking out our haul but right before we were about to turn in Charlie realized that, since we were leaving Chiang Mai the next day, we were going to have to check out before our tour in the morning. That meant that we needed to be packed and ready to go before we went to sleep. It took a little while to get all of our souvenirs to fit in our luggage, but eventually we got everything squared away and were able to get some sleep.