It's an Exciting World

We all slowly filtered down to the restaurant next to the hotel. We headed out from there to the next street over where most of the rental shops were. After getting the scooters we set out for an easy ride through the city with Jeremy leading and the rest of us following. Nick had not been on a motor bike before and he took a couple turns to get used to it. We also all had to get used to driving on the left. At the temple we relaxed and decided that we were all comfortable enough to continue to the mountain. We took the easiest route out of the city and made it to the mountain base with no incidents. We kept going with me in the lead until Nick decided to rush ahead. Jeremy who was keeping the rear got confused where nick wasn’t in the line and went to the front to ask about it. While he was passing us in the right lane a truck coming down the mountain crossed over into his lane and clipped Jeremy’s handle bars. He was able to keep control but it gave us the notion that lanes are relative in Thailand. We met up with Nick at the first set of waterfalls. They were nice but it was obvious that it had a good bit of toilet water in it. We then went all the way up the mountain to the palace area for lunch. 
The palace was under construction so we could only see the grounds. There were tons of flowers everywhere. It was rather nice but there was a surprising lack of views from the mountain top.
We then started down the mountain and stopped at the temple. All of us took the naga stairs up and down and it wasn’t nearly as much as I thought it would be. We saw some monks on our way up and they were all just chilling on the stairs using their smart phones. Jeremy has the theory that second sons of wealthy families may be sent to be monks to figure things out for themselves like the monks of the middle ages in Europe. These monks aren’t monks for life so it isn’t as big a deal to be sent off for a period of months to years.  The temple had a big shiny gold spire that can be seen from anywhere in Chiang mai. It also has the best view of Chiang mai that you can get anywhere.
Continuing down the mountain we stopped by a set of waterfalls that were pretty. We then kept going all the way back to the rental shop and dropped off the bikes. We were just in time to run over and hop on the bus to the cooking class. I had a great time on the scooters and would get one if it made sense. 

We had a quick breakfast this morning and then Nick and I went off to one last temple.
We finished everything at the hotel and then got a taxi truck to the airport. It was really quick to check in and the others ended up playing an hour of poker. The flight was decently quick and we got a van to the hotel. The traffic was pretty bad so we didn’t get there until nearly 5pm.

We walked a little south of the city to get to the Saturday night market. This was so MCU better than the night bazaar and the markets in Bangkok. There were lots of handmade things and there were many people there who really loved the things they were selling. There also was of course no short supply of food vendors. I went with Adam and Nick while Steph, Jeremy, Tina and Amit got massages. After they were done with massages I took Jeremy and Steph down to the market on a fun tuktuk ride through the alleys. We had to run through the market as most of it was closing up starting at 10. It was very nice having the entire street closed off for the market and the many more local items.

The elephant nature park staff picked us up at 8:30 and we got on the road. We stopped off at a rest station for drinks and saw all the other people doing the one day package.  On the rough road to the park the van ended up getting a flat tire, but we were close enough to just get another van to cone pick us up.
The park is in a valley with a river going across one side. It is very pretty and the elephants are roaming around more or less freely. There were two elephants in chains, both males, that were too unruly to allow to roam. The first thing we did was to feed the elephants. We then got to hear some of the stories about how the elephants have ended up at the park. Many of them came from the logging industry and were worked hard there. They have broken legs and put out eyes. Several of the elephants are blind from abuse by previous owners.  There are a few babies at the park; one at two months one at six months. They are very cute especially when playing in the mud. We went down to the river to wash the elephants and they let us throw water on their backs. It was lots of fun to interact with the elephants in a situation where they have some agency. It was pretty clear that we were in their space not them in ours.

My phone had died by the time we got to dinner but the restaurant was beautiful. We had a great view of the river and were seated in probably the best place in the restaurant. Stephanie was mad at me for an unintentional terrible pun and disappointing her by not having dinner on a mountain. We tried to but the timing wasn’t working out and when she asked where we were going I said we were going to find a great view for dinner. The map had a place along the river where the host at fern paradise had pointed out as a place with nice restaurants labelled as a great view. When we got there the restaurant that we saw was “A Great View.” I must say that it lived up to its name.
We did our thing and filled the table with food. During dinner there were sporadic fireworks and paper lanterns coming from one spot just down the river. Once we had finished eating Amit and Tina stayed there and Steph went back to the hotel and fell asleep.  The rest of the guys went onwards to the night bazaar. The first thing we ran across was the source of fireworks and paper lanterns. There was a fireworks stand that was amazingly cheap and they had some great ones. There was a 16 mortar pack that Jeremy bought along with another mortar and a small hand mortar. Both Nick and I got large hand mortars that fired 5 each. In total we fired 31 large fireworks over the river. We moseyed our way over to the night bazaar to find it to be much like the night markets from bangkok. We walked through it and then took a cab back to the hotel.

We went to tiger kingdom and had a great time. Tina and Amit only got in with the large tigers but the rest of us did 3 of the sizes. The little ones were so cute and very playful with each other. They are just giant kittens after all. Steph got to fulfill her dream of rubbing her face in a tigers belly and the rest of us got to pet them a lot. The trainers use the same control method that I use for archer and Lana. Just put something on a stick and wave it around.  My phone died after seeing the small tigers so that is where my pictures end. We petted the big cats and had a lot of fun. After that Steph and I got our feet nibbled on by fish before we got the cab driver to drop us off at the riverside restaurants

We stopped by the restaurant just down the street from the hotel and got lunch. It was packed even after the normal lunch rush. The food was decent but not as rich as the food we have gotten used to here. It was still very good food and the fried mango salad Steph got was interesting.

After breakfast we all packed up and headed into the old city to the Flora House. I think we may be staying in the prettiest house in the city.
We took a quick walk around the block to see what was around and ran across a good number of cute shops and restaurants. There are also a ton of temples in the old city and we stopped at only a few of them. We did get to see one of the larger older ruins of Wat Chedi Luang. The ch can also be written as j. That makes it the Jedi Temple.

The morning at fern paradise was really nice and we had an amazing breakfast. They were incredible at service and gave some great advice on what to do.
Nick and I got the traditional breakfast and it was a soup of rice and pork.