After a nice break on hot and relaxing Koh Samui we headed to Chaing Mai for a short stay. The Koh Samui airport was open air and beautiful. It felt like Disneyland with the giant tropical plants and cute people-mover trams that took you to your airplane. This is a picture of our gate.
We landed in Chaing Mai around noon and were picked up by our driver Mr. Seart. We decided a driver would maximize our time and minimize stress. We hopped in his blissfully cool van and headed to the mountains. On the way to the national park and temple we came around a corner to find a tree had fallen in front of the car ahead of us. (It was an extremely rainy and windy day)
It was incredible to see everyone jump out of thei cars in both directions to clear the road. We were back under way in no time. We took a funicular up the hill to visit the temple- winds were furious up there so we didn’t stay long.
Once we found our driver and made our way back to the van we were off to Tiger Kingdom. Charlie had been looking forward to this stop for months. We bought the ultimate tiger package and had the chance to pet five different groups of tigers ranging in sizes. One particularly feisty tiger wanted to cuddle Charlie but the keepers wouldn’t let them get close. He kept following Charlie around- I guess even tigers recognize Charlie’s love for cats.
We had time for one more temple in the rain before heading to our hotel. We were shocked to find out upon arrival that we had been upgraded to a beautiful suite. Too bad we were only staying one night! We spent the evening wandering the night market and had dinner with a view of the river.
The following day we took a cooking class. Our group was made up of three Irish college girls, a family from Wales and the two of us.
After an ingredient buying tour of a local market we cooked several dishes from scratch. It was wonderful. They sent us home with recipes and full bellies. We spent the remainder of the afternoon trying to cool off by the pool before boarding our overnight train to Bangkok.