The Wandering Sisters: Birthday in Thailand!

Ok first off let me apologize for not posting sooner. We have been in China for the past five weeks and they block both Facebook and our blog site there so we had no acess. We will try to catch up in the next two posts. This one will finish up our time in Thailand.

Yay! Its my birthday!

Twenty Seven Years old. I can’t believe I am that old but I guess most would still say that is young. I couldn’t have picked a better birthday celebration. We, meaning Wil, Laura D, Lulu, and I, have been staying in Chiang Mia for about a week now and our really enjoying ourselves. Chiang Mia is a relatively large city in the northern part of Thailand and is surrounded by beautiful mountains and jungles. We rented scooters one day and went to explore the surrounding area. We had so much fun with the scooters in Phuket we decided to have another go at it. We drove up to some parks in the mountains and went on a short hike through the woods along a stream with waterfalls. It was nice to be outdoors hiking again, even if it was a short hike.

Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep

Thai girl lighting a prayer candle

We couldn’t end a sightseeing day in Thailand without seeing a temple…so we did. We went to Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep. It is the most famous temple in the area and is on the top of one of the many small mountains. It was one of the best temples I have been to. At this point they all seem to run together but this one stood out. Maybe it was the misty conditions that shrouded the temple and created a sense of drama and mystery. It also made for great pictures. We walked around and tried to decipher the many devotional actions of the Thai visitors.

More of the Wat

Well I digress. Let me get back to the point of this blog post, my birthday! We all got dressed up in our backpacker finest… shorts and a tank top that may have been clean. Clean by definition now means only worn two times before. It’s hard when you only have about three outfits. We did put makeup on though. Wow, I don’t think I have put makeup on for almost seven months. I almost forgot how. Well, we were looking good now! We went to dinner and I decided I wanted pizza as a birthday treat. We stopped first to buy some rum to have with the pizza. Then it was off to the bars to dance the night away. We had so much fun. The bars are all on the same little street so you can go from one to the other all night. We went from Reggae to Rock to Reggae and back to Rock. I may or may not have danced on stage.

Drunken silliness on the dance floor

The next morning we all were feeling less than wonderful. Somehow we had thought it would be a good idea to schedule a cooking class for that morning. We had to get up and be ready by 9am! Then we had to chop and mix and cook and eat for most of the day. It was a struggle but we managed to have a good time and learned a lot of great dishes. I was happy when I got home and got to go back to my bed.

Us and a big kitty

Another fun thing we got to do was play with tigers. Yes this is me digressing again. I am a bit scatterbrained today. Laura D was determined to see tigers on her visit. I was a bit hesitant because I thought the tigers would be caged and treated poorly and I didn’t want to see or support that. Surprisingly the place was great. It had huge enclosures and really caring handlers and happy tigers. We had a great time. I’ll let the pictures say the rest.

I couldn't get enough of their eyes!

Laura playing with two babies

spooning jungle style... I was assured this was safe

The day we were scheduled to leave Chiang Mia some of our friends invited us to go to a giant Reggae festival that night. We had already checked out of our hostel and were waiting to catch our bus to Bangkok, but who could pass on an invitation like that! We quickly arranged to change our bus tickets for the next day and checked back into our hostel for the night. It was well worth it! The concert was amazing and so much fun. We had great music, great friends, and drinks in a bucket! We danced the night away. I don’t think we made it back till 5am and when we left the party was still going. It was a great last night in Chiang Mai!