Yoga, temple, hill tribe, and tiger oh my!

Wednesday, October 15th

Since finding a meditation center seemed almost impossible, we decided to find peace with yoga this morning.  We started with a healthy pomelo and jackfruit breakfast while walking to yogasala.  Yoga was exactly what we needed to stretch our sore bodies from riding the elephants.  I'm not a yoga practitioner, so I was pretty crap at it.  The teacher had to constantly correct my form and told me to stop being lazy in front of the whole class of 5 people.  I also realized meditation would be very difficult for me as I can't even let my mind relax in peace during the five minute shavasana.  Maybe practice makes perfect?  I will give it more tries.  Steph thought the class was a bit slow, and the instructor wanted perfect form every time.  The spiritual connection was also ruined by the quick "250 baht per head" comment quickly after the class adjoined.  We thought it would of been better if someone other than the teacher collected the payment or if we paid to a register or something.

To further enhance our spiritual connections, we decided to go to the most famous temple in chaing mai - Wat Phra Singh.  But first stop, a quick lunch.  We stopped by another canteen looking place and got a few small dishes to share - northern style thai curry, pork sticky rice, and deep fried pork ribs.  All very good and cheap - 120 baht ($3.50) for the whole meal.

Wat Phra Singh was not crowded, which was nice.  It was established in 1345 and contains murals depicting Lanna customs and dress.  Unlike Bangkok's temple it looked a bit more modest since a lot of the outer building carvings were from wood with beautiful murals, which is a hallmark of Lanna period.  It was totally worth checking out.  By this stage, steph and I are pretty much templed out and can't really be bothered to see that many more of them.  However I did see two girls do monk chat.  Supposedly you can speak to them about anything, so steph and I might try to do monk chat on friday to learn more about buddhism.  On our way out I bumped into a dude that thought I was thai.  I've been identified as a local in vietnam and bangkok.  It must be my more dark skinned complexion, although I try my hardest to avoid the sun.  So this dude claimed he lived in melbourne with an aussie wife and teaches thai boxing.  In the end we thought he was just trying to scam us because he wanted to take us way out of town.

Our driver for the rest of the day was meeting us at our guesthouse at 2pm.  At 1:15pm, we started to walk back for a quick shower.  We didn't realize how far we were from the guesthouse.  It took us 45mins to walk back.  Thus, late to meet him, but within 20mins, we were both showered and changed.  We even booked our rock climbing trip for the next day!  That was all star speed!

In 30mins, we arrived at the Hill tribe eco agriculture tourist site.  Originally we thought the hill tribes we were visiting were all separated, but it wasn't.  It seemed to be a concentrated area where 4 different tribes lived for the lazy tourists to breeze through.  A Disneyland of hill tribes.  We saw Karen, Lahu, Hmong, and Karen long neck hill tribes.  Karen long necks had the most beautiful girls. Starting at the age of five they put rings on their necks to extend the neck overtime.  They also wear rings on their knee caps.  They spoke english the best out of the different tribes, and  seem to be the most attractive hill tribe to visit.  The hmong originated from southern china.  Lahu wear black and res jackets.  All the tribes there seemed to survive through tourism, making bracelet and scarfs.  So steph and I decided to support the Hmong and each purchased a bracelet.

The next stop was tiger kingdom.  Much more exciting.  We had a quick snack and then lined up to pet the tigers.  We touched baby tigers, small tiger (6 months old), and big tigers (11 months old) for 1,000 baht ($30).  They behave just like pet cats, except they are much bigger and stronger.  According to the tiger caretaker, tigers are a lot stronger than lions, and the big ones we saw were only a third of the size of an adult.  Adult tigers can weigh up to 220kgs.  Most tigers are in captivity now, so it's a bit sad to see them caged up.  They would never survive in the wild this way.  The carekeeper called them scary cats because they are scared of anything unfamiliar.  But after the age of 15 months, a tiger becomes too big to "play" with so they are transferred into zoos.

The tigers were fuzzy wuzzy.  Steph and I had a great time petting them and snapping away photos.  I can't believed how close we were to them.  Tigers are now Steph and I's favorite cats.  Also it's best to go right before 6pm when the tigers are waking up, but you still have the sun for photos.  The moon was also beautiful that night, nice, low and full.

We then asked our driver to drop us off at the night bazaar for food.  First off, it was not the street we thought was the night bazaar was the previous night.  We shared some street food to fill up our bellies.  Steph and I each bought a ghetto $4 bag.  I tried to purchase shoes for the melbourne cup, but no where seemed to have my size.  Maybe tomorrow.

Since I am sore everywhere still from the elephant riding, I can't imagine how rock climbing is going to treat me.  We are excited for it since we are the only two on the trip tomorrow.