Second day in Chiang-Mai. We decided to go on a little wild adventure and meet some new buddies - elephants! I've always thought that elephants are one of most beautiful animals in the world and I finally get to meet and play with them! So excited! A lot of animal protection groups argued that elephant camps promote animal cruelty, but in fact, the elephants are very well cared for.
We didn't have much time, so we did a half day tour, which included transportation to and from the hotel, feeding the elephants, elephant riding and bathing with elephants! It was so much fun! We each had one elephant, and before riding them, we were taught different commands so that the elephants would understand us. For example, "pai pai" means going straight, and that's exactly what we said the whole time when we were riding the elephants. Pai Pai! Pai Pai! We also fed them before the morning stroll! There are two ways to feed them, and it goes with different "commands". "Kep Kep" means you give them the food and they use their trunks to grab it from you and put it in their mouths. "Bon Bon" means you feed it directly to their mouth. We fed them so much sugar cane and apparently those are just their snacks! They eat 100kg of food every day! That's just CRAZY! We saw a baby elephant too, and it was just soooo adorable and playful. It kept pushing me <3 so cute!
After the tour, we went back to the hostel and we found a random restaurant closeby. We saw mostly locals in the restaurant, so we figured it should be good! (And cheap!) It was indeed delicious! We ordered some sticky rice, some smoothies, papaya salad, a pork dish and a soup. A random place in Thailand is so much better than any place in LA! And I am certainly missing the thai food.......
Next thing on the schedule! Tigers!!! We went to the Tiger Kingdom, and it was VERY expensive. They have different prices for different sizes of tigers. We saw the "big cat" and the baby tigers. I was so scared that every time the tiger moved, I just jumped a little. It was a very cool experience but I was slightly disappointed though because you don't really get to spend too much time in the cage with the tigers, and there were only a few cages with tigers in them. The setup is not what I would have imagined. I later found another place called Tiger Temple near Bangkok that seems to be more fun! The tigers are being taken care of by the monks in the monastery. You get to feed the tigers, spend more time with them, and they seemed more playful.
Last stop before dinner! Wat Umong! This is a 700-year-old temple with an underground structure! It is located at the foothill of Suthep Mountain, and there are a lot of different kinds of chicken/birds running around. The word "Umong" means tunnel, and you can walk around the ancient tunnel built hundreds of years ago with little buddha statues along the walls. This is one of my favorite wats in Chiang Mai.
Time to search for food again! We went to the westernized area between Huay Kaew Road and Suthep Road, and the entire strip is filled with coffee shops, bars, restaurants, foot massages, etc. As we walk around to search for our dinner, we walked pass a coffee shop, so we had a coffee. Then, we walked past a dessert place, so we got mango sticky rice and thai tea shaved ice. We found some gift shops, so we bought some souvenirs. At last, we saw a restaurant with a huge line! Huge line = must be good! So, we decided to wait in line and try the place. The place is called TongTemToh Northern Thai Cuisine! There are so many things we wanted to try, so we ordered 4 dishes (just the two of us....). We ordered grilled pork shoulders (it's being grilled right outside of the restaurant..... while we were waiting for the table, we were already drooling over the grilled meat!), Burmese style pork stew, bamboo shoots with munchy pork, stir-fried pork with spicy herb. We wanted to order fried sweet leaves with eggs, but they were out :( The dishes were SOOOO GOOD! Best thai food I've ever had! It was spicy, but not just flat spicy, it's spicy at a different level. Each dish had different spices in it, and the different spices excite your palate in different ways. It was just a very exciting dining experience.
Before heading back, we once again, had a foot massage. I think we are addicted to it now! We both just fell asleep! Wish we could have had it at the hostel so we could just pass out there!