Went to Chiang Mai, saw tigers and stuff

“I work them long nights, long nights to get a pay day

Finally got paid, now I need shade and vacay.” – Big Sean, “Mercy”

I had a couple days off for New Years, so some friends and I headed up to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. The city puts on several shows and events for the holidays, so it seemed like the place to be.

Our plan was to take an overnight bus on Saturday night. The Bangkok Bus Terminal was absolute bedlam. There were people sitting all over the place outside the station and there was hardly walking room inside the station. All the buses were delayed and redirected to different platforms. There were a few poor workers who were trying to coordinatet literally everyone to their respective buses. They would stand on a stage, read a ticket, bark out where to go, and move on to the next one. It was complete chaos. After getting put on the wrong bus initially, we made it to the right one. 12 hours later we awoke in Chiang Mai around 9 AM.

Chiang Mai is an absolutely beautiful city. It’s full of windy streets with lush trees sprinkled throughout. It’s not as congested and Bangkok and has more foreign travelers and families. It’s like Chicago, mixed with LA, mixed with Evanston. I’m pretty down with all three of those. Another unique part of the city are the red Song-Taws. These function like regular cabs and will take you anywhere in the city for a cheap price. It was nice to have inexpensive transportation after being around Bangkok cabs which can get pricey.

Our first stop was the Tiger Kingdom. As you may guess, you can see and pet tigers here. You have to sign a waiver before you get in the cage but the tigers are all very mellow and lazy. There’s an ongoing debate about whether the tigers are drugged or not. The park says they aren’t but I just don’t get how you can let people hang out with wild tigers. Haven't they eaten people before? Regardless, being around tigers was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.

The next destination was the crocodile show. The trainer goes into the “ring” with them and then it gets crazy. The pictures speak a lot better than words.

The crocodile guy convinced me to sit on one. It wasn’t really scared until I stood up and realized that I was, in fact, above a crocodile. But I got out with all limbs attached. God is good.

We saw some monkeys do tricks after that. They did pushups, shot basketballs, and smashed coconuts. It was pretty neat but they were on leashes, which struck me as very depressing.

Chiang Mai has some great nightlife as well. It’s sort of like a Thai college town with good variety of restaurants, bars, and clubs. Each night there were free concerts put on by the city. Adjacent to the main concert stage was a plaza littered with vendors and merchants. The next day we just wandered around the city for a couple hours. Here are a couple pics.

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

We later looked at a guidebook for the top places to see within the city. Funnily enough we saw 6 out of the 10 unintentionally. Nice!

The last day we went to Doi Suthep, a mountain that has the second highest peak in Thailand. A 304 step staircase leads up to the temple at the top. At the summit, Buddhists worship and give offerings. I even got blessed by a monk. He said some words in Thai, and then, “Happy happy happy new year, lucky, lucky, happy new year.” Awesome.

New year’s eve was pretty fun. The bars were packed and lanterns were sent into the sky. Coming back our bus was naturally delayed by 4 hours. On the plus side, the bus had great leg room, free cookies, blankets, and a viewing of White House Down with English subtitles. Those VIP buses sure are fancy.

And that was Chiang Mai. There are still so many things I didn’t get to do there, so I’m planning to go back at some point. Can't leave my new tiger friends hanging. 

Mark