Sunday, March 3, 2013

Lions, Tigers and Elephants...Oh My! Welcome to Chiang Mai

Quote of the Day: "An Adventurous life does not necessarily mean climbing mountains, swimming with sharks, or jumping off cliffs. It means risking yourself by leaving a little piece of you behind in all those that you meet along the way.  "

Chiang Mai is my favorite city on earth so far. It is incredible, exotic and full of adventure. We had amazing experiences that I will tell you about. right. now.

 
So before we even got to Chiang Mai, we stopped in Lampang where our driver just kind of pointed at these horse drawn carriages and opened our doors so we could give it a go...pretty random and unexpected but we though, hey, what the heck. we'll do it. It was pretty fun but Lampang isn't a huge city so of course the white people are already a big show, then you add a horse drawn carriage and a guy in from ringing a bell and you have the whole circus. haha


We also stopped at this awesome temple in Lampang!

Just getting to Chiang Mai was beautiful, sights like this filled our whole trip, not to mention the weather got about 100 times better when we drove up to higher elevation!


 We found some places to grab some sustenance. Did you know Ronald McDonald Sawadeeka's his guuests?! Then there was MEXICAN! I know, come to Thailand to eat Mexican food?  but trust me, we eat alot of Thai food. Anyway the Mexican restaurant was having Karaoke night!So we did a few horribly off key numbers and got alot of other people to go up! Good times :)
Then we went to the Saturday night walking street and bought bartered our way into a lot of great deals. We also had fantastic Thai food on a boat on the Riverside. Pretty great. 



Who knew there were tons of incredible artists here. I was in heaven with all these beautiful elephant paintings.


 The next day we went further into the mountains and went Zip Lining! Zip Lining through the jungle already sounds awesome, but it was even better than I imagined and can even explain.

 Our guides where Tik and Banana. They were a blast and made jokes the whole time. On one of the lines, Tik was taking a picture of sarah as she came in and didn't catch her. She ended up back in the middle of the line, stuck. He went out to get her and as she said "you didn't Catch Me!!!" He just said "yea but I take Good photo and now I save your life" haha


 

 
Then we went to see the Tigers who could have ripped off our faces. But lucky for us, they have been trained since birth not to eat humans ;) haha




 Paw as big as my hand. No Big Deal. 
We went to the zoo which was HUMONGOUS. There is no way you could walk to whole thing in a day so we took this bus thing that you could get off of anytime you wanted. Driving around the zoo we found this beautiful view of Chiang Mai AND our favorite stop was this beautiful elephant!



We got to feed it bananas! This big-guy was pretty greedy and ate bananas from four of us!
We also found these hippo's. I hesitate with this story but, Okay I'll tell you. So we were amazed at how close you could get to all the animals and when we saw the hippos, we went running. But as I got within about 5 feet of a Massive one, he did his business and promptly began using his tail as a windshield wiper of destruction, exploding poo EVERYWHERE. I Sprinted for cover as fast as I could and luckily, I dodged those bullets but I will never look at hippos the same. 
When we got back to school, Michaela was teaching the kids the letter H with the "Happy Hippo" book, she told them what happened, and in those precious little minds, they twisted into, "Teacher Nesha got Hippo poo on her face!" haha They'll never let me live it down. 

And then there was this incredible waterfall that we had a blast in. 

Could anyone ask for a better three day weekend?! I think  not! Chiang Mai was amazing and I can't wait until we get to go back in April! Thailand has most definitely the best two months of my life so far. I wouldn't trade it for the world. 

Love from Thailand, 
Nesha <3












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