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Nice lazy morning, we decided to have abit of lie in. Yesterday was a manic day and having to tackle it hungover was a struggle massively! We were up and out the door by 12:30. So not too bad really. We planned on having a lazy day and just getting ourselves ready to head to Chiang Rai tomorrow. The only thing we had booked was the Chiang Mai Night Safari for tonight, we were looking forward to this, plus its date night so winner all round.
We have to give a special mention to Mr Dan Gale for the recommendation about the burrito restaurant. We had spotted this earlier in the week but had completely forgot about it. Plus they had a sign outside about pulled pork and which we can never resist.
It was a short trip on the moped away from our hostel and we parked right outside. Went in and first on order was the beer, standard protocol in Thailand! Kara took on the pulled pork sandwich and I went for a steak burrito, it was awesome. It left us both nice and comfortably full ready for the rest of the day :-) I told Kara that I had a surprise lined up for her, she kept questioning me about it. Is it a Louis Vuitton shop, blah blah blah…. Ha ha.
After finishing our food we left to go to the Cat Cafe, Kara had found this on trip advisor and we knew it would be hilarious. We call her mum to crazy cat lady so we had to go get involved. Kara had forgot about this place so I took her by surprise. She loved it! It was mental, cats flying everywhere, chasing tin foil, plastic bags and they had so many places to climb, sleep or hide. It was pretty cool but crazy!! I couldn't believe how popular it was, people love cats and coffee. There was a little black cat called Darth, he had a squished up nose and did actually look abit like Darth Vadar. Kara fell in love with him and spent quite a while taking pictures and playing with him. Maybe he reminded her of little Boris? They both have squished up little faces lol. It was a space themed coffee shop so all of the cats names were pretty much star wars characters or space related. We spent around a hour and a half there, we had brownies, iced lemonade and a cup of tea. All in all it was a mad experience and pretty relation just chilling out on cushions surrounded by cats.
Our next mission was to sort our bus tickets ready for tomorrow. Chiang Rai is around a 3 hour drive from Chiang Mai so we fancied a little bit of comfort. We went to a travel shop called Trek and Travel. Here we booked our tickets then had to go to 7 Eleven to pay, strange little setup?? The woman was really helpful but charged us 100 baht (£2) for arranging them. All in the tickets and fee cost us 700 baht (£14), a little expensive but we had a VIP coach, so had food and drink included plus good leg room and comfy seats. Couldn't really complain. We headed off to 7 eleven, paid our money and our tickets were printed on a receipt. It was all in Thai so we didn't really have a clue what it said, for all we know it could have been a ticket to Timbuktu.
We were soon back at our hostel and quickly freshing up to go to the night safari. Loaded the directions in to google maps and off we went. It was around 12km away and would take around 20 minutes. We roughly knew where we were going but always best to have a backup with the map. Half way to the safari we got caught in abit of traffic along the main road, all you could hear was these birds chirping. Each side of the road there runs power lines and various cables, there were literally thousands of birds in the trees and perched on them chirping away. We made a little song to remember this moment and sang it all the way to the safari park. Here it is:
I hear birds, here there and anywhere
Short birds, fat birds, I love the way they perch there
There on the powers lines, they look so fine
There gunna chirp, til the end of time.
They kinda love it when we drive past
There gunna take a glance
Whilst there sat in there chirping class
Loved it right? Can you imagine us on the moped singing away to that as we drive along. We got some funny looks along the way. Ha ha
We soon arrived at the Night Safari, they had a disinfectant bath that we had to drive through on our moped, we didn't have a clue how deep it was so just plodded through slowly. Didn't fancy getting drenched by this or sinking! lol we parked up right by the entrance and were greeted by some deer and giraffe. Of course we had to get involved and feed them. 30 baht (60p) for the privilege but was well worth it. The giraffe's were really greedy but seeing Kara's face and there tongue hanging out was hilarious. It was so good to get to do this, they were right next to the restaurant too so you could sit there enjoying a few beers and some food whilst Mr Giraffe takes a little nose at what your upto.
The first safari tram left at 6:45 so we had to get our move on. We walked upto reception, collected our tickets an we were ready. There were staff everywhere pointing you in the right direction, most of them had megaphones. They would use it even when talking right next to you! lol we were quite early so managed to get a good seat on the tram. Grabbed some more food for the giraffes, zebra and deer to feed along the way. We weren't sure if we had got on the right tram as it was full of Thai/Chinese people, we didn't fancy listening to the tour in Thai and not having a clue what or where we were going. The tram soon set off and luckily it was in English, we went through to see deer, antelope, kangaroos, buffalo, bison, white rhinos, elephants and more. There were some funny little warthog/pig things running around at one point and they were hilarious, just kept chasing the bus and grunting/squealing away. It lasted about half hour and we quickly shot off to the night predator safari. We know the Chinese and Thai's hang around a lot just generally faffing so we had to beat the que. We ended up being first there, winner! We had the choice of seats so opted for the back of the first cart. This one is where we could see all the lions, tigers and basically any other predators. The bears were quite funny to see as they stood up as we drove past so people could throw them banana's, some people had a terrible shot and they either ended up the wrong side of the electric fence or in the stream! Most of the animals were sleeping but it was so good to see, there was always some hungry deer around to be seen.
After this we decided to take the walking trail around the park, quite a lot of the animals were again sleeping but we got to see quite a few roaming around. There was a jaguar having a good nose at us as we walked past, so James went up to the window for a picture and the jaguar jumped at the window and made a big growl. Scary stuff! We fed some otters, they all came running up squeaking for food. We had to feed them with a fishing rod with rope on. They snatched the fish and were actually quite powerful. They were greedy little b*****s and as we walked off we could hear them squeaking for more! ha ha
We managed to watch abit of the water/light show in the lake from the other side of the park, this was quite cool to see. After walking around the trail we had a look in all the souvenir shops and at the photo section. Here you could have your picture with two white tigers, a baby and a medium sized one. I was all up for this but Kara was abit sceptical. I was keen to get involved and have my picture with both but Kara was worried the big one would eat me. Ive survived ok for now and have had my picture with bigger ones. But the baby one was cool and pretty lively. The pictures and CD copy were 300 baht, so not bad really. I was told to hold the cub under his arms and lift him up, upon doing this and him being playful he had little nibble on my hand. It didn't hurt and its safe to say my hand is still in tact :-) we had to wait half hour for the pictures to be ready so headed back off to the Giraffe restaurant. We were pretty hungry but didn't fancy anything on the menu, so we settled for a Singha beer instead. No wifi either so all round a disaster lol.
We went back and got our picture, it was great and came out really well. Kara bought a t-shirt and we headed back to our little moped. Put our souvenirs in the seat and hit the road, luckily there was no disinfectant bath on the way out! The drive back was freezing, I only had a vest and shorts on. The air hitting you at 60 kph in a vest is refreshing but bloody cold! It only took us about 15/20 minutes to get back an headed straight for food. We opted for Casa just round the corner from our hostel, we ordered some Chang, chips and two pizzas. James's pizza was called a sunrise and was literally shaped like the sun. The crust was awesome :-)
2 second little drive back to our hostel, straight in and get our bags packed up ready for tomorrow. We loaded up all the pictures but unfortunately most of them were blurry! The GoPro struggles with night photos and especially when they involve moment, such a shame really as they could have been good. Once the photos were all done and we were packed we decided to get some rest. Early start tomorrow, up and out the door by 8. Drop our moped back, tuk tuk to the Bus Station and hit the road :-)
Will update you tomorrow on our day travelling and first day in Chiang Rai.
J&K over and out!
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