Thailand - Chiang Mai Day Day 177 (16,200 miles)

We arrived in Chiang Mai which is probably the best known city in northern Thailand on 7th January. We have been here before, around 10 years ago and like many places it has grown and now attracts more tourists. The good thing is that the city centre is surrounded by a moat so this part which is a couple of biggish roads and a maze of small streets hasn't changed that much.

Our visit was timed to coincide with the Horizons Unlimited annual meeting, some of you will know we have attended Horizons events in Spain and the US before and its a good opportunity to meet up with others who are/have or want to do some travelling by motorcycle.

Below is a group shot of those who attended.

Why are we always the last to leave the bar? The diehard contingency below, John with Kelly (from Oz), John (from UK) and Dave (from US) with whom we were to share many more enjoyable evenings!

Our first guesthouse wasn't great (see below), a vase of flowers in the room would be nice but bushes growing through the window was not so good. Plus the leaky ceiling through which something (not sure what) dripped all night. Needless to say we moved on to somewhere nicer the next day.

John took this to prove he does let me do some shopping, although it is a present for someone else.

Chiang Mai's Sunday night market has some amazingly good and cheap food, definitely the place to eat.


Hope the pressie we bought for Sasha Mai makes it home, the Post Office gets a little busy!


Our first Tuk Tuk ride of this trip, they're always fun.


There are still a few tigers in the wild in south east asia but for those of us that don't have many months to sit in the jungle waiting there is Tiger Kingdom! We would not normally go to zoos but the temptation of being able to go in the cages with them was too much! Below are a few photo's, as you can imagine we took many,many more.

Three months old

6 months old

1 year old

23 months old, this is a very precise age as apparently when they get to 24 months the public are no longer allowed in with them as they are naturally solitary animals and although still not fully mature it's a bit of a risk!

They were surprising docile to the point that it was hard to believe they weren't sedated. However, there was an Aussie conservation student doing voluntary work who we spoke to in the enclosure of the big ones and he was adamant they are just very well fed and basically in the wild tigers laze around for most of the day and hunt in the evening and early morning.

I couldn't get John to put his head in the tiger's mouth (now that would have been a fab photo) he seemed to think our travel insurance may not cover the consequences.

We had a fun evening watching Thai boxing, the locals love to bet on the bouts and get very excited so it's a good atmosphere and is the asian way we were able to barter the entrance fee down as there were a few of us.