Doi Saket

About 20 minutes away from Chiang Mai city lies a village called Doi Saket, and in this little village lies the next part of our adventure.

I cannot say enough wonderful things about our home stay. This place alone would have been enough to satisfy my thirst for new locations. A family run establishment with only 4 guesthouses, it was quaint and perfect and lovely.

We stayed in a bamboo hut on beautifully landscaped private property, backed up right to some rice paddy fields. Inside the open air hut was all we needed because we are SO not high maintenance.

Plus, mosquito nets are ultra cool.

View from porch

Front porch

No joke, I could really just hang out on the porch of my bamboo hut all day, reading a book and I WOULD BE JUST FINE.

But alas, there's more out there to see, plus my kids would no doubt put an end to that serenity.
So, onward we go.

A tiny perk of staying here was the use of bikes to ride around the village. This actually made me nervous, as I have not ridden a bike in 17 years. Plus, the 5-yr-old hasn't mastered balance yet so that meant him precariously dangling off the edge. At least to my mind it did. 

But we managed to get those kinks worked out and explore the village we did.

Hey there, Mr. Ox.

                            

Buddhist alter/fireplace

Local shop

STOP

Nong, the owner of the home stay along with her husband Koko, was teaching us some traditional dance moves. I don't have that extra cool wrist flexibility that she is showing off here, but now I can at least say I've got a move down.

Along with the dancing, we asked to light a lantern. I understand this can be done at any time of the year, to celebrate any event. The family that happened to be there during our trip got married, and in their case, this was the reason for the lantern.  Tradition holds that these lanterns take the bad luck away.

Hold up, did you say "bad luck be gone"? Sign me up.
I just wanted to float a lantern, so I say we were celebrating being on vacation. Good enough reason, right?

There it goes, all of our bad luck floating up, up, and away. Between this and the birds, we should be all set.

This was quite magical though, and if anything, I would love to one day visit during Loi Krathong, the lantern festival that takes place around November.

Because one day, I will see this for my very own eyes:

Kingdom Shmingdom

Okay, picture this. It's Christmas Day, and you're in a foreign country with your kids and for the first time in their young lives, they don't have a mountain of presents to open (because, hello? they're in a foreign country!). Right. So what do you do?

How about go and see some tigers? Won't that be fantastic? That will be like their best Christmas ever!!!

Or not.

I was hopeful Tiger Kingdom would be better than I anticipated. I wanted it to be a truly genuine and emotional experience with some beautiful and misunderstood animals. Here is my summary in one sentence:

Pay some money and spend 15 minutes taking pictures with a sleepy tiger.

Okay, next!

Okay, now it's your turn. Hurry, quick!

Okay baby, make a growly face. Perfect!

I wanted more. I didn't care so much about the pictures. I wanted to cuddle and nuzzle the tigers. I wanted them to purr on my lap. 

I WANTED THE TIGERS TO LOVE ME. 

But instead, we got herded in like cattle, struck a few poses and had to leave for the next group to get their 15 minutes of cat-time.

Follow the rules

Big cats. You may have noticed the above pictures were all with the cubs. That's because when you have kids, those are the only ones children are allowed to be with. And of course, they charge a higher fee. To see the big ones, you have to be, well, big. 

Don't let this picture fool you. He was scared.

You can tell, we left quite an impression on them. I think this one is having dreams of us and wishing we would adopt him. Probably not.

This did not create the warm fuzzy memories I was hoping. Truthfully, my kids will have fonder and stronger memories of the tuk-tuks than of their time with the tigers.

Want my advice? Skip it.

Chiang Mai City, Part 2

If you ever find yourself in Chiang Mai, make sure there's a Sunday in there somewhere. Less than a 10 minute walk away from our hotel is the Tha Phae Gate, one of the original four gates into the old city. This gate is where the Sunday Night Market begins.

A market is a market, right? Normally I would agree with you, and in fact we avoided most of "those" types of places where you buy knock-off designer bags and crap souvenirs. 
This one is different.

Crowded? Well, yes.

Arrive around 4pm to avoid heavy crowds, but be sure to stick around for the national anthem, where the crowd becomes eerily still and silent. And while there are great and tempting things to buy....

Aluminum Tuk-tuks

Clever t-shirts

Nifty hats

Buddha babies

Paper umbrellas

a whole lotta Art

there's so much more to witness

Violin on moped

Blind musicians

Puppet show

Puppet show

and ingest/consume/devour

Food

and more food!

If there's only one thing you can do, make sure this is it.

Chiang Mai City, Part 1

Here we go. Piling into the back of our red truck taxi upon arrival in Chiang Mai. It's late, but not to us. Our internal clocks are telling us it's barely dinner time. We are set to lodge at the Funky Monkey, and I confess, I think I chose this place because of it's name.
Luckily it offers more.
Huge, gigantic rooms that could easily sleep 6, owners that are helpful, and prime location make it a winner with me.

Their friendly dogs (Mutley, seen here) made it a winner with the kids.

Sompet market is about 5 minutes away, and a great entry-market for us beginners. Colors, smells....

...and tastes. Our first purchase in Thailand was four fresh fruit smoothies. That's dragonfruit, watermelon, coconut and mango. All for less than $2.

Sufficiently fueled up, it's time for more exploring. With no destination in mind, here's what we find:

 

Alleyways with shops and cafes, lined with tropical foliage. Coming from the desert, you can imagine our awe.

A Buddhist temple, or two...

or three, or four...

Some ancient architecture, and . . .

. . . a few lucky birds.

 
Supposedly, our bad luck will fly away with the birds once released. Suckers that we are, of course we had to partake.

To be continued....