Tiger-iffic

Welcome to Chiang Mai! After a 14 hour night train we arrived at 10:30am. The train was AWESOME. The kids got such a kick out of our seats that could be changed to a table and then when it was time to sleep they turned into bunks with privacy curtains and bed lights.

We all got the best night sleep of the trip! After dinner, Courtney came to me and said, "Mom! Did you know that the toilet empties onto the track! I felt the breeze!" Sure enough when you look into the commode you can see the track zooming by!

Today we took it easy as we settled into a sweet little guest house in Chiang Mai and packed for our Elephant Trek (2 days, 1 night) where we will ride, hike and raft on a bamboo boat, stopping to play in water falls 2x along the way!

We managed to fit in a trip to the Tiger Santuary where we were able to pet and roll around with tigers 4 and 7 months old. Once they loose their baby teeth, they become too dangerous. Poor Jeremy couldn't come in. Apparently the smaller children are so enticing to the cats that they create a danger. This was evidenced as Jeremy walked by a cage and the sleepy tigers, jumped up poised to play while making feisty gurgles deep in their throat! That was enough to take away and blues Jeremy was having about not getting to go inside the cages!

We also, much to my protest, stopped at a monkey school which we had learned mistreat ed the monkey's by chaining them up around their necks. We saw a short show and talked to the kids about fair, humane treatment of animals. We paused for a silly picture with this monkey that was not listening to the trainer and we loved him, since he was getting the better of his trainer (go monkey go...you rebel!)