Panda-monium! In Thailand?!

As the only spot in Southeast Asia that is home to these lovable black and white furry animals, of course I wanted to visit the Chiang Mai Zoo. Erika doesn't realize this is actually the main reason we came to Chiang Mai (jk! Kinda...). After a wonderful morning yoga class, we tuktuk'd to the Zoo and for a very reasonable $6 admission, we enjoyed a wonderful afternoon at the zoo.

It was pretty big, even has a bus and monorail system, and the many diverse animals seemed to have enough space and food to live happily. We first went to the panda area and I was happy to see that Chuang Chuang and Lin Hua were in an air conditioned space, complete with chairs, bamboo, trees and other things to play with and eat. However, after working so closely with the pandas in China, zoos are less fun as I don't like having to stay behind the fence!

But it was awesome to see them, especially since their 10 year loan from China ends next year so they may not be sticking around Thailand. But maybe they'll extend the loan, especially since they were successful in breeding a baby named Lin Ping in 2009, who we didn't see, which is pretty rare for pandas in captivity (must be all the sexual energy Thailand is known for!).

The rest of the zoo included lions, tigers, hippos, rhinos, deer, koalas and of course, elephants.

But here, unlike any other zoo, a few elephants were not behind a fence and we could just walk up and touch and feed them. A zoo in the states would never allow that! The other odd thing was that the monkeys were also barely behind fences and we saw a few running around the zoo wild! Imagine that at your local zoo! Doesn't help that this guy was feeding one.

This peacock was also amazingly on display for us.

The penguins made me think of Jeff and Kate!

And since we didn't see any Gibbons while zip lining in Laos, we were happy to watch these swinging creatures for a while.

Not all the monks are in the zoo, every day you meet quite a few (ok I realize it's meant to be 'monkeys' but I couldn't resist!)

Later we met up with Brett from our Vietnam trip as he is back to his home in Chiang Mai. Splurging on Belgium beers in the cool university area was a wonderful last night in Thailand (for now).

Off to Cambodia!

Joining the Trekking Circus

An awesome and well traveled friend Amy rightfully informed us that trekking in Chiang Mai (versus smaller cities like Chiang Rai or Pai) can be a bit like a tourist circus and it kinda was but we had only planned on a few days in northern Thailand and Chiang Mai city is worth the visit so had to go from here. And because March is one of the hottest and smokiest months (they burn all their fields now to make way for new rice and crops to be planted in the upcoming rainy season...kinda depressing environmentally actually), I'm glad we are only here a few days.

Haze:

But anyhow, we did sign up for the two day trekking adventure to a hill tribe village. Yes, we have already joked about them being Village People. In the morning, we picked up our crew and headed to the hills. After lunch, we started a pretty strenuous uphill trek, thankfully interspersed with jumps in the water, and arrived to our Lammu village by late afternoon.

Although we weren't the first, and won't be the last, to trek through here, the people, especially kids, were friendly, though we were sad to see how trashy the area was.

Even with incredibly basic living accomodations of thatched huts and small woodfire stoves on the floor, the mom still cooked up an amazing curry and vegetable dinner. Then it was singing and guitar playing by the campfire, along with roasted bananas and beers.

Erika and I were pretty beat (post St Paddys still) so headed to our mosquito-netted thin mattress on the hut floor early.

And our group was kinda a dud. Two French couples (who spoke almost no english and wouldn't stop feeling each other up), young Danish girls and a Spanish-Japanese couple who were nice. With as many chickens, pigs and animals roaming around, I knew they'd be cockadoodledoing early and they sure were.

After breakfast, we left our village people and trekked down, stopping at waterfalls, before arriving at our elephant camp.

Though we had already had a fun elephant ride in Laos, there was no way to avoid another one here so now we've rode these large mahouts in another country.

The baby one tried to join us for lunch:

Next was whitewater rafting which was hilarious.

We joined a German couple who were much nicer than our couples and provided the funniest moment of our whole adventure. Of course our rafts were of pretty poor quality and after banging over some big rocks, we finally almost all went overboard. I ended up in the middle, lost my paddle, and as water filled up the boat, we heard a noise like we were losing air and the German man freaks out and yells, "We are sinking!!!" In which Erika and I crack up and can not stop laughing. If you're not sure why, you'll understand after you search YouTube for 'what are you sinking about'. This was also a running joke in Germany for the past two years.

After surviving the whitewater portion, we boarded our bamboo rafts to complete the now much calmer leg of the journey.

Our guide soon decided we should do all the rowing now and we subsequently got lodged on a few rocks but overall, it was a pleasant and unique way to raft down the river.

As we boarded our tuk tuk for the return journey, we commented how happy we were to have not chosen the three day option as the smoke really inhibited some of the amazing views that may be worth a longer trek during a different season. An Indian dinner, a stroll through the night market and foot massages and we felt like new again!

Chiang Mai: The Rose of the North

The temple-filled and gated old city of Chiang Mai is a beautiful spot in northern Thailand, nicknamed the Rose of the North because it offers a considerably cooler climate compared to Bangkok and the south (though still quite warm now!) We enjoyed a leisurely first day partaking in the foot massage, body scrub and oil massage offerings from one of the many spas around town. Then it was time to prep for the St Paddy's festivities at the only Irish Pub in town, the UN Irish Pub. The live music was fabulous, the green beer flowing and we had the odd pleasure of befriending a hilarious elderly Italian man who was watching the rugby match next to us. He kept buying us beers and after he fell of his barstool, we kept buying him waters. Very entertaining night!

As Chiang Mai has a large expat community, we also found listings for many yoga studios and tried out Wild Rose's 2 hour class on Sunday morning hosted by the exotically tattooed and incredibly bendy Casey Gramaglia who founded what he calls Thai Hermit Yoga. It was a very interesting class and with his assist, I did my first headstand!

Our yogi:

Afterwards, we strolled around the many many temples (still called wats here too) which date as far back as the 1200's.

Lunch of curry in a pineapple and fresh smoothies was delightful (how are Thais not obese?! Their food is amazing!).

Speaking of amazing grub, we decided we needed to hone our Thai cooking skills at the Smart Cook Cooking School where we had a fun evening with our tutor May. She first took us to the market to discuss different noodles, veggies and pastes. I'm certainly going to have to get to know my local Asian market upon return!

Then we got to work grinding, slicing, mixing and woking up our amazing creations of green and red chicken curry, chicken coconut milk soup and pad Thai!

It was a lovely meal and most certainly one I will attempt again once home! Then we braved the crowds for the popular Sunday night market which is a whole mile long! All set up and taken down in one day. Brilliant day!

Who says treehouses are for kids?

On Day 1 of our Gibbon Experience, we checked our backpacks in to our guesthouse storage and arrived for our initial brief at the office at 8. There we viewed a safety video (yikes, I almost wrote 'safety briefing') which provided the basic zip lining instructions and then we were loaded in a tuk-tuk and off we went! A bumpy hourlong ride brought us to a small village, with the usual naked children, free-roaming chickens and pigs and thatch-roof stilted huts. Here we received our harnesses, strapped them on and began trekking.

It was warming up fast and a little (ok, lot) of sweating and huffing and puffing later, we arrived at our first sequence of zip lines. It's hard to describe (maybe the video can help if i can find a way to load it) but the sheer thrill of zipping over huge valleys of lush green trees and palms that roll for miles in each direction is absolutely amazing! And works wonders to evaporate the sweat away too.

With each zip, our group got more confident and before ya know it, people were hooping, hollering, kicking their free legs around and letting go with both hands. We stopped for sandwiches and then continued the trekking and zipping for another hour or so before we arrived at our treehouse.

If you've ever climbed a tree, set up a treehouse and camped out in a backyard fort as a kid, you know that these evoke all sorts of fun childhood memories. After we zipped over to our tree, I was just amazed at how well constructed (thank goodness as we were suspended about 300 feet above the ground) and clean the tree house was. You arrive at the first level which was also had the bathroom, sink and shower. Yes there was a shower and it had the most amazing views!

The next level was the main floor and was relatively large. It had room for three large beds, the dining area, a sink and even had lighting.

A stairway led to a small loft with another bed. The view looking out over the entire valley was just breathtaking. As our guides left us alone when we were at the treehouse, our only other resident was the cat who we were told eats the rats if they should make a visit so we decided she could stay of course. After some chill time, we left to do some more zipping, right as the sun was lazily dipping towards the mountains, bathing the valleys in a bright amber glow.

Arriving home to the most magnificent sunset, we were treated to a yummy dinner of sticky rice, veggies and a meat dish. As well as the local Mallaca wine! It was rather sweet but I'm not going to complain when we are miles from civilization (and in a treehouse nonetheless) and get wine!

We also got to know our group better which included a Spainard (gave us some good info for our May trip), a couple from Switzerland and two girls for Seoul. Erika and I whipped out the cards for a game of Crazy 8's and Spoons which was a big hit. As we tucked the net around the bed and listed to the night jungle come alive with the hiss of cicadas and the cackle of birds, I quickly lulled into a deep slumber.

The sun awoke us early at and 7 am, we were out trekking and zipping again. The cooler morning air was wonderful and the zipping was a great way to wake up!

Back at the treehouse, breakfast of more rice and such gave us the energy to trek and zipline some more as we eventually made it back to another small village for our bumpy trip out. This experience was incredibly memorable and although it would've been nice to have a whole other day to zipline, I was just so happy we got to go at all since we had trouble getting ahold of them. We arrived back at Huay Xai in enough time to catch our ferry across to Thailand and then a 5 hour ride to Chiang Mai! Laos was amazingly impressive and eye-opening and I only wish I had more time to explore this laid back and scenic, albeit poor and basic, country... Laos-style!