April 19
This is a very exciting day. First we have a quick coffee and breakfast
and then we are off to the Chinese Consulate this time to hopefully make it
while they are still open. We take the
open-air taxi (or songtaew in Thai) with the same driver as the previous day.
He drops us off and we go into the Consulate only to discover a long line of
visa seekers. The Chinese have one price
for visas for Americans and a different ( ie: substantially lower price) price
for everyone else in the world.
Yea! We submit our applications
and since it is still early, we decide to grab a Songtaew and head for the
Tiger Kingdom where we can get up close and personal with tigers of all shapes
and sizes. We find a really nice driver
and after haggling with him on the price (started at 400BHT ($14) ended at
200BHT ($7) we are off. It is a pretty
far drive outside of town and apparently along the road there are any number of
other attractions that we can visit. We
arrive at the Tiger Kingdom and Hudson, Annie and Paulie opt for the smallest
tigers (3-5 months old) while Sam and I venture on for the slightly larger ones
(7 months). We are admitted inside the
park and then diverge on different paths to our respective age groups. They let us in on a couple of key
instructions before allowing us in the cage with the tigers: Leave all bags outside; don’t approach from
front; no quick moves and no touching of face or paws. All of a sudden, the gate is lifted and we
are now warned about the electric fence that goes around the cage. We approach a very sleepy tiger and start
rubbing his tummy as he lounges in the grass.
The handler attempts to rouse him, but he is having none of it.
At one point, he gives a very irritated look at Sammy and this is the
point where I decide to move on to another tiger. This one is taking a bath in the pool and
playing with a chewy toy. We pet his
back for a while before returning to the lounging teenager in the corner. Sam is brave enough to put his head on the
Tiger’s stomach and I get a couple of good shots of him. When I try the same thing, the tiger lunges
and I get a bit freaked out. No
thanks! Our allotted time is now up and
we go back to meet up with the others and hear their stories about the cuddly
baby tigers. After we have viewed all of
the tigers both large and small, we venture over to the area where they are
offering Zorb rides in the lake. Wow! This is great. The kids are all game for it and soon are
bobbing in the water and running inside their bubbles. This is crazy fun! After they get out, they tell us it was
pretty hot inside….like a funhouse greenhouse!
We decide to go on to see the Monkey School while we are out and our
driver is happy to oblige (more about that later). Off we go and in no time arrive at the School
where we are treated to a fabulous show with trained monkeys doing some pretty
funny stuff….playing basketball, riding bikes, selling flowers and sitting on
our laps. We are also treated to meet and greet the wild Gibbons. They put their hands through the cages and we
can hold their little leathery hand (they have fingernails like humans!). After this, we decide to go see a hill tribe
with woman who sport the rings around their necks known as the “Longnecks”. Upon our arrival there, we find out that it
is very expensive to enter and you pretty much just walk around and look at
people living their lives in their “natural habitat”. Not sure we are ready for that…..need to read
up a bit on the tribes before paying to people watch, so we go on to more exciting
pursuits….Bungey Jumping! Sam has
decided that he wants to be dropped from a very high point into thin air
attached to nothing more than an oversized rubber band. Sounds great!
We find the high adrenaline place and see that we can also sign up to
ATV, motorbike, go Kart as well as Bungey Jump.
Sam is not quite heavy enough to jump by himself and none of us is brave
enough to go with him so the staff volunteer to assist our needs. Up, up up they go to a height of around 150’
in the air….they are only a tiny speck at the top of a crane. Soon a siren sounds and down, down, down he
comes…..BOING! He has the biggest smile
on his face once he returns to terra firma and he proudly displays his “Certificate
of Courage”. Next up, Hudson and Sam
decide to go drift karting and they bumper around the track for a while at
ridiculous speeds before Annie says that she now wants to Bungey Jump. Hmm….well they have a second jump price for
Sam and Annie is full price to go, but what they heck. I tell the kids that this is the reason we
have been eating $2 lunches for the past 5 weeks and now we can enjoy. Up, up, up they go and when they reach the
top…..down, down, down they come as Annie clings onto her little brother for
comfort….it is an amazing moment for all.
At this point we are pretty broke, but are starting to understand why
the driver is SOOOo patient with us and driving us to all of these activities
for the agreed upon reduced price(remember the 200Baht?) Turns out he gets a little spiff for every
activity we enjoy, so he is happy for us to while away the day and eat up all
of our savings to jump from ridiculous heights.
He is as pleasant as he can be and attempts to get us to enjoy a
Crocodile show on our return to town. No
Thanks. Once we get back, we return to
the Peppermint Café for a late lunch and after we eat it is straight into the
pool for us. We take a much needed rest
after our dip and around 8:00, there are
cries to return to the Kafe for dinner which we oblige the kids. All in all a great day in Chiang Mai.
No comments:
Post a Comment