Jungle animals...

It's been a couple days since I last posted but I've got some time by myself to sit back and think about all I've done/seen in the last few days. After I fully recovered from being sick I walked around Chaing Mai to see some of the beautiful temples here (pictures). It took about 4 hours to see the ones I had my eyes on. I have a weird fascination with the monks haha. I love watching them and try to get close to them whenever they are around. On a more exciting note, the next day I went to the Tiger Kingdom. It was quite the experience. I was under the assumption the tigers were drugged for people to get near them...but they aren't. They are fed regularly and are never on the prowl looking for food. There were options of seeing the small, medium, and large tigers. Of course I went big. I was a bit nervous walking into the cage. It had 3 full grown tigers (2 brothers and a sister). I sat next to one of the males (Jo Jo was his name) and had to fully comprehend what was happening for a second. The worker told me I could lay on him haha so I did. I lifted his tale and back leg too. They are well trained cats. I said hi to the other male and female too. I saw them jump on each other in their pool and play around for a bit when I was still in the cage. It was unreal!
After the tigers, we drove to see monkeys and snakes. The snakes were scary. The workers put a couple big boas on my neck and I let them slide all over me. They were heavy snakes. After looking at them we sat down for a little show. The workers brought out some poisonous snakes and saved the king cobra for last (picture). The worker played around with them and kissed the king cobra on the head...a bite from one of those and your dead in 30 minutes. Yikes! He asked for a volunteer to touch one on the head so I stood up and did it. I was under the impression the venom had been taken out..I was wrong. He let the cobra bite into a plastic cup covered in saran wrap and it's venom came shooting out. After the snakes I went back to the guest house and relaxed for the night.
Yesterday and today was another adventure. Alec, the girls, and myself went a little ways out of Chaing Mai for some elephant riding, trekking, and white water rafting. We trekked for about 2 hours to our huts and fed, washed, and rode the elephants. Standing next to the elephants was humbling to say the least. We ate dinner around a fire with our guide and some of the "jungle boys" who live there. They played the guitar and talked with Alec and I for a few hours. The language barrier was pretty funny but we all had some good laughs. We trekked a more difficult path this morning to a waterfall and swimming hole and finally made it to the river for some rafting. It was a blast. Half way through we jumped on some bamboo rafts and finished up. It's been a different experience than Bangkok but I have enjoyed every second of it. Chaing Mai runs at a slower pace and the people are always friendly.
I can't forget to mention we went to a Muay Thai fight on Monday night that was a bunch of fun. Thai's are very passionate about their sport. We saw 7 fights (6 male and 1 female). The beginning fights were youngsters, maybe 13 or 14 years old and the last couple fights were professional fighters.
Tomorrow morning we are taking a bus to a place called Pai where a lot of back packers meet up and then we plan on taking a short bus ride (3 hours) to Chaing Rai. My time in Thailand has been going by quickly...we fly to Vietnam on the 13th. On a side note I'm really into this book right now called "A long way gone." I won't get into details but it's about a boy who lived in Sierra Leone and was caught by rebels and forced to kill and use machine guns at the age of 13. True story and he is the author of the book. I love and miss everyone at home. P.s. I ate grasshoppers ; ) Until next time...love