Re-entering Thailand and Chang Mai

After a lovely three days in Cambodia we set out to cross the border back into Thailand. Considering our interesting adventure crossing into Cambodia we were nervous about crossing back into Thailand. Lucky for us it was pretty uneventful except for the part where we received our visas to re-enter the country and noticed that our visas would expire two days before the end of our trip. oops...

When you fly into the country you get a 30 day visa. If you cross a land border you get a 15 day visa. When we flew into Thailand we received our 30 day visas but it didn't occur to us that by leaving it would cancel our 30 day visa and when we re-entered the 15 day visa wouldn't be quite long enough. oops... fortunately we made it home and did not end up in a Thai prison so thats a plus.

The trip back across the border took a lot longer than we had anticipated. We stood for hours in a long line with no air conditioning but the plus side was that we met some lovely Kiwi friends in the line in front of us. We shared a mini bus ride back to Bangkok and they shared some lovely coconut candies wrapped in rice paper they had purchased while visiting Laos. It was delicious! Our mini bus driver was awesome too because he rushed us to the train station in Bangkok just in time to catch the 6:00 night train to Chang Mai. We ran from the bus to the train ticket window and bought our tickets at 5:58 just as the train pulled up. We hopped onto the train and were on our way to Chang Mai! It all happened so fast and we felt really lucky to have made it on the train. It wasn't until a couple of hours later that we realized just how uncomfortable traveling on a train overnight can be.

 First came the food, which was terrible, with its mystery meat and shrimpy smelling sauce. During a moment of trying to maneuver my tray into the trash I ended up spilling shrimpy juices all over my lap which forced me to smell like shrimp the rest of the train ride. More train jostling and frequent stops along the way prevented Christian and I from sleeping so that when we arrived in Chang Mai we were stinky and cranky. We felt better after breakfast but still smelled gross... and shrimpy. 

We spent much of our morning walking the streets of Chang Mai and visiting a few of the Wats that are sprinkled throughout the city. After getting our fill of pretty Buddha statues we finally made our way to the hotel and showered. Here are some pictures of the fun things we did whilst out and about in Chang Mai... except for the massages which I did not take pictures of. Trust me though. They were amazing!!!

Me with shrimpy smelling stains

Walking the streets of Chang Mai

The Wats were beautifully decorated

Decorative planter

Wat

The steps that lead to Doi Sutep

Its a long way up

The bells you ring for good luck

Our driver was excited for us to see the view of the whole city from up high but when we looked out we were astonished to see so much pollution. Not so much pretty as gross when we realized what we'd been breathing.

More Doi Suthep decorations

Entering the middle of Doi Suthep to see the golden Chedi

Buddha

The whole thing was made of gold so it sparkled brightly in the sunlight. It was sometimes difficult to look at the Chedi with all the sunlight reflecting off it.

jingling bells

Lots of gold Buddhas

and gold decorations

A replica of the emerald Buddha that now resides in the Grand Palace

cool stuff

cool doors

Monk

beginning the long walk down the stairs

After Doi Suthep we went to a silk farm and saw how they make silk

Silk Worms

Some worms are allowed to grow up so they can lay more eggs

Others are only allowed to turn yellow

and spin their cocoon before...

...they are boiled alive and their cocoon silk is extracted

several strands are wound together to make a stronger thread

the silk is dyed many different colors and then dried

silk strands are then placed on a loom and silk cloth is 

made either in single colors or various mixed stripes

bolts of pink silk

We went to the Tiger sanctuary where they let us go into the cages

 and play with 4 month old baby tigers

almost like a giant Lucifur

sleepy Tiger

giant paws as big as my hand

playing with a coconut.... these guys are cute but they managed to destroy that coconut in about 5 minutes

Christian has a knack for all types of kitties

Chang Mai was beautiful and seemed to showcase a more outdoorsy adventurous side of Thailand. There were tons of Jungle treks and animal encounter activities. There were SO many things to do but when you only have three weeks for a whole country its hard to fit it all in. We decided we were ready to head to the beach and relax a bit. We caught a plane to Phuket (pronounced poo-ket and sadly not the other way which I preferred because it made me smile every time I said it) and then on to Ko Phi Phi (yep its ko-pee-pee) and finally Ko Lanta.

**Tune in to the next post where I learn that all those things washed up on the shore are not boob implants and are in fact jelly fish.