Gah the bed at this guest house is way too hard.  I also know now not to leave the AC on all night because I woke up at like 5:30am absolutely freezing and couldn't fall back asleep.  Also the breakfast at this guesthouse is pathetic. 

But anyway the main journey today was to Chiang Mai's local tiger sanctuary where we were able to pet actual baby tigers.  I say baby they weren't kittens because that cost too much but we played with the six month / year old ones.  It was cute, but with the fact that they could kill me at any moment I was kind of on guard.  But they are for the most part big cats.  This group was born in captivity so they were raised more or less like giant house cats.  They played with toys, rough housed and cuddled you like a house cat would.  In all for the "small" tigers it cost Jack and I like 500B (20 Canadian) each.

We had lunch for fairly cheap at the sanctuary and then headed to Doi Suthep temple.  It's 20km outside of the city but has a beautiful temple complex overlooking the city and surrounding forest.  I found it funny that when we got there, we entered the main temple grounds and at an information booth there were four or five monks watching a badly dubbed version of "The Mummy."  I guess they are officially monks of the 21st century. 

We continued to explore and on one side of the temple the view of town was super clear so obviously we stopped for a photo opp.  As we walked into one of the smaller buildings a monk started talking to us.  He then wrapped a string cord around both of our wrists in turn and said a blessing.  Kind of taken aback but pleasantly so we thanked him and left.  Looking it up online the blessing is supposed to bring good, long lasting luck.  We then made our way back down the mountain in our semi-rented Song Thaew (it's kind of like an old pick up truck but with a modified bed that can hold passengers.) 

I'm not entirely sure what we're going to do on our last full day tomorrow but Jack says he got a suggestion or two from the receptionist downstairs so we'll see.  

G-