Wrestling with tigers

Today was a pretty extraordinary day. An "only in Thailand" day. We woke up not really sure what we were doing today and decided to go see an elephant show outside of the city. It's not an easy destination to get to, but our host at our guesthouse arranged for us to have a private driver for the day for the ridiculous price of 600 baht ($18). Our driver took us where ever we wanted to go, so since it was our last day in Chiang Mai, we were able to go and do anything we wanted without having to haggle with taxis, tuk tuks, or sawngtheaws. Our first stop was the Mae Sa Elephant Training Camp. Now, I know what you're thinking - didn't we already go on an elephant ride? Well, we can't seem to get enough of them and this park offers an elephant show and has baby elephants that we just had to check out. AMAZING. The best $4 I've ever spent. The elephant park is huge and filled with tons of elephants. First we headed off to the nursery to see a 5 month old baby elephant. On our way there we came across some rambunctious teenaged elephants. They were unbelievably well trained. On command they would kneel so we could sit on their leg and then they would wrap their trunk around your waist. They also are trained to do hat tricks. They take a straw hat and place it gently on your head. Then they give your head a few taps to make sure they hat is on correctly before they take it off again. I was foolish and had left the bananas and sugar cane that I purchased on the floor and sure enough those sneaky long trunks reached out and grabbed it!! Some Japanese tourists had a good laugh at our expense for that one. Next stop, the baby elephant. Adorable. So small and cute. I played a little tug of war with its trunk. After this we watched the elephants getting bathed in the river. They would spray water at us and would lie on their sides in the river so that their trainers could scrub them down. And finally, as if all this wasn't enough, we had first row seats at the elephant show. This nearly blew my mind. Brace yourself: The elephants can not only do tricks like speak on command, walk in circles holding each others tails, and swing their trunks around like a lasso, but they also play harmonica!! Hula hoop! We watched the elephants play a game of soccer where two elephants kicked the ball into the goal while another one played goalie. The elephants also painted gorgeous paintings of flowers, landscapes, and self portraits. A few elephants took giant logs and built a log wall. One elephant challenged an audience member to a game throwing darts at balloons. It was a close game, but the audience member won. In an act of frustration, the elephant then went over to their balloons, knocked one onto the ground and popped it. Truly amazing.

While we were in the area, we figured we'd just stop by and see what Tiger Kingdom was all about. I mean, since the elephants were so fantastic, what can the tigers do? You know what they do? They freaking let you into their cages and let you play and pet them. There are different packages you can choose from that range from playing with the babies (under 2 months old), playing with the small ones (5 months old), and petting the adult tigers (full grown tigers). Neither of us really wanted to take the risk of battling a full grown tiger. Plus, we had heard that you really only get to pet it and take a few pictures with it, so we decided to go with the little guys. Mike played with the small, 5 month old tigers. They were about the size of a medium sized dog. There were about 5-6 of them in the cage and they liked to play tug of war with palm branches and lounge around the pool and under umbrellas. I decided to play with the babies, 2 months old and about the size of a house cat. But these guys LOVED to play. There was about 5-6 of them in the cage and I spent the entire time rubbing their bellies, playing tug of war, and rough housing with them. It was truly spectacular. (Before you start posting comments about how dangerously stupid this sounds, it was highly supervised and the tigers we small and very docile).

We stopped at a local flea market where everything is a good deal. I decided not to buy these funky thai sandals for 100 baht and I'm still kicking myself. That's $3... Why are we not taking more advantage of these prices? Last stop was Wat U-Mong, a temple buried in the jungle that consists of underground tunnels and lots of monks.

And finally (is anyone still reading?), we went and got 1 hour long massages for $6. It's been a great day. This is our last night in Chiang Mai before we head down to the southern islands for some time on the beach.