Day 3 and was it ever busy!
we woke up VERYearly ( 4am- our inner clocks still arent adjusted- I think Hart was right about getting over jetlag in aprox. 2 weeks). we spent the morning walking around the city and visited a budhist temple where we got a couple picture of us pretending to pray. we realized quickly that no stores were open yet because it was still too early so we called the cab driver who we met the night before to inquire about hiring him to take us around for the day. He agreed to pick us up and show us everything chiang mai has to offer. For $30 this cab driver (his name was Kai) escorted us around for almost over 12 hours...talk about value! it costs us $30 for a 10 minute cab ride from downtown victoria to our house.

first on the agenda was a trip out to an elephant camp in the north of chiang mai- it took about 45 minutes to get out there but we killed the time learning a few thai words from kai and buying fresh coconuts off the side of the highway (delicious and thirst quenching). once we got to the elephant camp we watched the elephants put on a show where they did tricks etc... following the little show we hopped on an old rickity buggy pulled by two white oxen and went for about a 20 minute ride to a hillside tribes village. the village was pretty lame and consisted of dirt, chickens and a few people trying to sell us trinkets. However, in a short amount of time, a pack of elephants arrived and we hopped on for our jungle elephant trek. we lucked out big time  with the guy controling our elephant as he turned out to be the best guide out there. All the other guides had long sharp axe-like devices that they hit the elephants skulls with in order to keep them in line. However, our guy ( who looked like the thai version of Tweets) didnt even carry one, he just had a couple of little nails in his hands that he nuged the elephants with every so often. For those of you who have never been on an elephant, let me assure you , they are not comfortable ...its like riding a mechanical bull for an hour. we rode on the elephant through amazing jungle terrain, up steep hillsides, through valleys and finished off by riding through a beautiful river. It was amazing and definately something we will remember forever. After the elephant trek we were treated to a delicious thai buffet lunch and then boarded a bamboo raft where we cruised down the river for close to 40 minutes admiring the beauty of the area.

After the raft ride our cab driver drove us out to the Tiger village where we had the chance to spend some time in the tiger pens petting the cats. We first went into the pen with the 3 month old tigers and it was awesome...the tigers were so cute and a couple of them were pretty playful. It reminded us of our cat Tye when he was a kitten . After the babies we headed into a pen with some very large tigers...i think they might have been drugged as all the did was lay there but nonetheless it was still pretty cool.

the day was scorching hot so we headed back to our hotel for an hour to refresh and then our cab driver picked us up again to take us to the budhist temple wat senthemp ( i totaly spelled that wrong - but im tired so cut me a break). to get to the temple you have to drive about a half hour up a steep winding road and then when you finaly get there you have to climb over 300 steps to get to the top. it is well worth it, the temple is beautiful and the view is amazing.

on our way back into town, our cab driver suggested some massages and took us to a spa not far from our hotel. It was the perfect ending to an amazing day, and for the record, i think i plan on getting a massage everyday for the rest of the trip ( cheap and so goood).

tomorrow we say good bye to Chiang mai and fly into phuket! we cant wait for the beautiful beaches. we wont be staying in as nice accomodations for the rest of our trip so the blogs might start to slow down but we will try to keep it up.

talk to you soon
CK 1 & 2