Normandy Adventures: Tiger (or Thai Girl, hehe) Kingdom

Norm:

The last day in Chiang Mai was the only full day where we didn't have any concrete activities planned. We slept in late and when we woke up, we checked out some of the local temples in the downtown area. We were also in search for the traditional Kao Soi, a traditional noodle dish from the area. We walked around and tired from wandering in the heat, we settled for a tourist trap called Peppermint, with pretty bland Kao Soi. At least the waitresses were nice. We chilled there for a while, Mandy wrote on her postcards and I enjoyed the free wifi.

Temple we found on our walk

The moat around the old city square

In the afternoon, we decided to check out the other animal attraction in Chiang Mai and went to Tiger Kingdom, a place where we could get up close and personal with tigers. We opted to see the smallest, small and big tigers which were 3 months, 6 months and 1.5+ years old respectively. We entered their enclosures with trainers present, and were able to pet the tigers, take pictures and see them frolic with each other. People, including myself, wondered whether the tigers were drugged to be "docile", but the park adamantly stated that this was not the case. Considering how active the tigers were (even the biggest cats), I tend to believe that. I also learnt that my allergy to cats extends to the big cats as well. After playing and resting my head on the tigers, the sneezes and the rashes came (should have brought some Reactin with me). After an hour or so, we headed back on the taxi back towards downtown Chiang Mai. On the taxi home, we were sharing a taxi with two other women. The red taxis in Chiang Mai are a little different; you sit perpendicular on benches which is not how you typically sit in a car. On the way back, the taxi slammed on the brakes and Mandy literally went flying into a German lady sitting beside her. We all had a good laugh about it haha. (Mandy's side note: Surprisingly it didn't hurt.)

On our way to Tiger Kingdom

Open concept taxis

Smallest tiger (Mandy was still scared)

He's so sleepy zzzZZz

What are you looking at? (Small tiger)

Mandy's really scared of the biggest tiger

Rawrrrr

Big comfy pillow

Baby tiger! Too bad we couldn't touch

In the evening, we decided to catch the night market along Wuilan road and HOLY, that market was massive. We had some street food for dinner (seriously, the street food has some of the best eats in our trip for super cheap). We also browsed the street vendors' wares, Mandy bought a few t-shirts and souvenirs. It started raining soon afterwards, so we went on a tuk-tuk and returned to the hotel for an early night. (Mandy's side note: The tuk-tuk driver drove extremely fast to a point where I thought I might fly off when he took a sharp turn.) We take a flight to Vietnam for the second country in our trip. Just as well, I was actually getting kind of tired of Thai food.