Day Twenty Eight; Chaing Mai

We woke up again before 6am to commence the drive from the Thai border to Chiang Mai. The scenery again consisted of filmy water reflecting the clouds back at the sky (again difficult to photograph from a van driving at speed but here is my best attempt):

We stopped once on the drive for breakfast outside a white and silver temple which was somewhat dazzling when the sun shone on it...

When we finally got into Chiang Mai we drove straight out to the tiger kingdom, where for a large sum of Thai Baht you can go inside the tiger cages and stroke and play with them.

I enjoyed going in with the cubs as they were alert and playful for most of the time, but I found the sight of some of the bigger tigers lying almost motionless (presumably heavily sedated although the tiger kingdom does claim this is not the case and they are just well trained), while tourists posed for photos with them a bit sadder. I'm not really sure if I agree with the place to be honest, but hey ho, I went and I enjoyed being able to stroke them so it would be grossly hypocritical to complain.

Such gorgeous animals. I love tigers.

After this Claire and I decided to seperate from the group in order to have more time in Chiang Mai as opposed to Bangkok, so we waved the rest of the group off as they headed for the train station, and then made our own way to our hostel in Chiang Mai.

We took a tuk tuk to our hostel which was lovely, booked some things for the next few days and ate some epic street food for 10 baht each (about 20pish).

The end of the gap adventures tour :(

The beginning of our new set of adventures :)

(I have included the next two days I spent n Chaing Mai with this blog as all are viable options for your day in Chaing Mai if you stay with the tour and return to Bangkok).