Chiang Mai Day 2, Temple and Night Safari

Expert posing

Groooooowl!

In order to get some energy for climbing the 'mountain' to the temple we meet early for breakfast. It takes forever to get there but it tastes good and that's whats important. We get a private car pick-up for the 6 of us to go to Wat Doi Suthep. It's one of the most important temples in the North of Thailand and apparently really beautiful and worth a visit although it's practically impossible to get there via public transport. Well no public transport for us. The car is fully decked out with DVD and music player and big comfy seats. Since the drivers selection includes Thai music - my ears haven't gotten acquired to their tones yet - we opt for a quiet ride insted. The ride up to the temple is on a lovely paved road (I expected it to be more bumpy) actually better in shape than some Austrian mountain roads. But apparently Thais don't know how to drive up the hills, everyone drives soooo slow. I mean, our Minibus takes over Mercedes' and BMW's. What's up with that. Back home we would have been up there in less than half the time I assume.

Group pic!!!

Anyway, nice ride, good views and dropped off right in front of the entrance. The hawkers run up to us expecting to sell us all sorts of stuff and they do get lucky. Joonas gets a little bell with a heart attached to it. You are supposed to write your name, or your family, friends etc. on there and hang it at the temple for good luck. We put all our 6 names on there and it does look pretty cool.

Back at you!

Now we have two options. Take a funicular up there for 20 baht (50 ct.) or walk up the hill. Since it's higher up the weather is really pleasant and we opt for the walk. After all it should help you to enlightenment when you take the difficult path up there.

Baby Buddhaaaaa

Difficult may be the wrong word. What sounded so hard - as in several hundred steps - was really not much more than climbing up to my lovely 5th floor 'Penthouse'  apartment. What happens on the steps is the interesting part. There's little girls, fully dressed in hill tribe clothing posing for pictures with 'farangs' (white foreigners). Upon taking a picture they hold up their hand and yell 'Give me moneeeeeey'. Ok that's not so cute.
One girl poses as if for a professional photoshoot and literally jumps Udo. She is a Pro at this and having fun doing it. And there's some great pictures coming out of it. Damn she is so adorable, Brangelina should adopt her.

Wat Doi Suthep

The Temple is really beautiful and the views over Chiang Mai are breathtaking. And there are a lot of worshippers here actually praying, not only tourists taking pictures. You can see that it is a very important temple for the locals. While on the outside we do make a few crazy pictures with stupid poses, enjoy the view but act all proper inside the temple. The golden Stupa is just wooow. Really enjoying this here. And since we got our private driver and not a tour bus we can take all the time WE want. Loving it! Decorations with baby buddhas, kid buddhas and other buddhas are everywhere and sooo cute. That would be something different to our garden dwarfs ;-)

Our lucky bell in the temple

On the way down we get to do some souvenir shopping. And I can't tell again coz it's.... yep, gifts. Let's just say I haven't lost my talent for bargaining.
Our driver is patiently waiting for all of us to finish our shopping and takes us back to the Guesthouse. Now the hunt for food starts. For whatever reason so many restaurants in Chiang Mai are closed. It's not easy finding a place to eat. We walk down Soi (small Lanes, sidestreets) after Soi, after Soi till we finally find a place that's open and... drumroll please... is asking reasonable prices. This will be our refueling stop for the next few days. The rest of the afternoon is relaxing at the pool till we get picked up (same private VIP car again) for the Chiang Mai Night Safari. It's a bit outside town and supposedly the 2nd best Night Safari in the world (after Singapore - I will confirm that after my midterm break).

Temple

At the Night Safari there's two routes you can take with an open kind of Buggy Bus. They drive you either by the animals in their enclosures or right through them if they are friendly ones.
The South Tour is pretty darn great. Best moments are when Zebras and Giraffes come up so close you can actually touch and pet them. A few passengers bought snacks so one Giraffe actually pokes her head right in sticks out a reaaaally long tongue to grab some food of them. I get to touch a Zebra walking by and actually pet the Giraffe. They are more casual and there's no danger of them biting of your fingers. There's some deer related animals walking around in the open too, forgive me if I forgot all their names. Sweet moment is also driving by the Hippos and actually seeing them open their mouth fully to catch some bananas.

Baby girl forthcoming....

In the 'main terminal' of the Night Safari you can get your picture taken with a white baby tiger for 300 Baht which we don't. There's another option of getting a picture with Pandas. But that's unfortunately photoshopped only. I have no idea how much I would have paid to actually hold a Baby Panda. Darn! The drive through the North enclosures is not as exciting but nice too. Few animals walking up, few animals to be seen. But yeah, a zoo.
Later there's also a water show with music and you can walk by some enclosures around the fake Swan Lake. So you get by some white tigers, alligators and the like. The walk is sveltering hot, although it's pitchdark already. Pictures generally turn out really crabby. For the health of the animals there's no flash allowed, which I guess may work as well for the wellbeing of the visitors but there's really no way of capturing a running Zebra in the night without a flash. Another sweet moment on the walking tour is when we get to the Jaguars. A zoo guard (or whoever) got two jaguars really close to the fence so if you dare you may reach in through the tiny holes and get to touch them. And I have to say a Jaguar's paw is just sooo much softer than it's regular fur. I spent the next minutes ripping out long stems of grass and tickling the Jaguar with it, and I think he/she really likes it, and gets playful at that too. Yeah, I can be that brave with a strong fence between us. A baby one of those would have been adorable for sure too!
The star of the night is however a tiny owl. It is soooo cool, it actually turns its head and stares at you the moment you say 'Owl'. Seems it knows that you are calling it. And it turns it's head 180 degrees. Cuuuuute! So you know, that evening was just owlsome!