Chiang Mai.

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Chiang Mai is really pleasant. It's not too hot, not too busy or crowded, easy to navigate, rather less costly than other places we've been and the food is good. People are welcoming - it is evident that many Thais are feeling "foreigner fatigue" as they are bombarded by enthusiastic travelers from all over the world - I don't blame them. However Chiang Mai doesn't seem to mind, and we feel welcome as opposed to just tolerated.

We thought we'd only stay a few days, but discussed it this morning and agreed that with no pressing need to go anywhere immediately, we should stay. Enjoy it until we become restless, as for the moment it's charming us every day.

Days have been languid, but we are doing a fair bit. Chiang Mai is a hub for a lot of trekking tourism, but for the most part it's rather out of our price range. In order to properly enjoy all the countries we're visiting we need to be cautious not to overspend in any one place, and Chiang Mai is a city where you could spend a lot of money on excursions and adventure tourism.

There's been lots of walking, exploring, reading, talking to people. A few highlights:

An afternoon spent at the Baan Kingkaew orphanage was good times. We went with a new friend named Teddy, a Lao-American we met. Teddy grew up in Chicago, but now calls New Orleans home, and he's near the end of a year long trip. He was going to the orphanage to play with the kids, having recently donated a soccer ball and invited us along. Jon and I made cash donations and spent a couple hours with a group that was about 3 or 4 years old. The orphanage was beautiful and the staff kind and affectionate, and the kids utterly hilarious. We were exhausted after! The sad part is that despite the loving nature of the staff there, there are 53 kids that want and deserve attention. They're craving physical contact, because as well as running around playing we did a whole lot of cuddling, they pounced on us for cuddles immediately.

The temples are beautiful. We're going to another one tomorrow in a national park. So far my favorite has been Wat Phra Singh here in Chiang Mai.

The Tiger Kingdom is a big touristy tiger zoo. It's got a successful breeding program and rescue project and it's a big slick place. You can pay to interact tigers which are under no sedation of any kind. They divide them into age categories and the adult tigers cost less, presumably because people tend to be more afraid of them? We chose the adults because, well, they're so impressive. The kittens sure were cute, though.

I could not predict how intense and...emotional (and counter-intuitive) it would be to be in the enclosure with them. It was amazing. The only control tool the trainers use are tiny bamboo canes and when the tiger is too playful or they want to reprimand them it's a gentle tap on the nose or cheek - a very light tap that the tigers barely seem to notice. We were under strict instructions to keep our hands away from their paws, throat and face. Their trainers do play with him, and can read their behaviour well, but obviously the tigers aren't allowed to let loose with random tourists. The tigers are segregated by age during the day but combined to play together after the facility is closed to the public every day.

When I was lounging beside Edward (we were placed with three brothers from the same litter, 21 months old, Edward, Leonardo and Oliver) he rolled onto his side for a belly rub. To my absolute delight after a few moments he began to purr loudly. Eventually he rolled onto his back and swung his face around towards me, completely exposing his throat for a good chin scratch, purring away. His mouth was inches from my calf - I'm not going to lie that suddenly I had a huge adrenaline/fear response and had to control myself from not jumping up...I had to take a deep breath and respond to the trainer who told me to move my leg away. The sad part - I really wanted to give that soft white chin a scratch. He wasn't being the least bit aggressive, but I was always aware I was sitting next to an alpha predator! All for about $10, believe it or not.

We went to a snake "farm", where they house many of the worlds scariest snakes to produce antivenin. We saw a king cobra show and handled a bunch of Burmese pythons. The cobra show was crazy, it still had it's fangs and venom and was several meters long. At one point he slithered out of the ring and the "charmer" had to catch him. There was no barrier between us and him, we were in a little seating area and it was ridiculously unsafe. At least we knew they had antivenin there, heehehehehe.

Yesterday Jon and I went to the awesome Crazy Horse Buttress with a very impressive climbing company called CMRCA. They were awesome. We're both very beginner climbers and this was a great opportunity to take a good top-rope course so we feel like we can start to accompany our O'hara friends more competently. Our instructor Taw is on the Thailand National Climbing Team and we loved him. Calm, patient and encouraging, a super nice guy. We feel a lot more able to join people who are leading and not need to be shown everything. We climbed a couple different 5.8 routes and feel good about our day. We were three in our class, a guy named Trevor from California was with us, and Taw had an assistant instructor with him named Ooan. Pretty sweet teacher-student ratio! The whole day cost us $85, the setting was stupendously beautiful and we feel that the course was a really good decision. Their bouldering gym is sweet and really inexpensive and we've dropped in a couple times cause it's like half a block away from our guesthouse, making it a nice option when we have a few hours to kill.

After we got back to Chiang Mai from Crazy Horse we went for dinner and some beer with Trevor and it was the Sunday Walking Market, a weekly street market in Chiang Mai. It's really cool and I wanted to shop!!!

Alas, I keep trying to upload the video of tummy-rubbing the tiger but it just won't work, I think it's too big, although photos are uploading nice and fast on this computer. I'm going to try to send it in email format to you all.

So next we go to a town called Pai, and we're in no rush to get there. Soon enough we will train back down to Bangkok and fly to Vietnam on the 8th. We like Chiang Mai so much we're going to hang out for a few more days. Tomorrow we're going to a botanical garden and to a temple that sits on top of a hill.

Hope you're all well. It's Eryn's birthday tomorrow!!!!