If I Fell

Well, well, well, another successful weekend in Chiang Mai. It's a magical town where time stops. Once again we left late Friday night and took that blasted bus of horror. 6 hours. Loud Asian music. Psychotic music videos. Those are like a train wreck. So terrifying yet you can't look away. But the important thing is, I was able to sit behind Kaitlen so I could pluck out her hairs for my collection. All in all a successful bus ride! (If that isn't unsettling to you in anyway....then there is no hope for humanity). We arrived in Chiang Mai at the butt crack of dawn where we met our new friend! Some dude traveling alone joined us to our hostel. His name is Nathan, from Canada. Cool story Hansel. (About 3% of you will get that joke).

Onto my adventures. The first thing on our list is......TIGERS! Can I just say, my heart exploded with love when we got to play with the baby tigers.

Ain't he the cutest?

Making a giant leap towards Crazy Cat Lady

Those were the babies. It really doesn't get any cuter than that. Next stop. The somewhat-larger-but-still-on the-small-scale tigers. These ones are 6 months old. The only problem is, there is no comfortable way of posing with these creatures. You can't go in front of them. Soooo...you must spoon their hind legs basically. And the bigger they get, the more awkward the pose. Observe. 

This one..not too bad. It's borderline awkward but soon I just jump right over that line. 

I always gotta be creepin

And for the next size up....

This just in, we have crossed the border into Awkwardville.

Awkward Family Photo, anyone?

Funny thing about this picture. While we were posing for this, the tiger on the left totally back handed me with its tail. Slapped me! Right across the face! Other than the shock of how much a tail slap hurt, it was hilarious! Unfortunately, it wasn't documented....wa wa :(

And for the last tiger experience....

The Big One

I don't care who you are, there's no right way to spoon a giant tiger. 

Our Canadian friend

So the tiger thing was great, right? Our next little event involved some scooters. That's right scooters. Me. On a scooter. SCOOTERS! Did I make it clear that I was riding a scooter? In Thailand? Where they drive on the left side of the road?? They don't really have right of way or anything. Its just whoever drive faster gets to go. But hey, if it works, it works! Eventually we got the hang of it. But in about the first 30 seconds, this is what happened:

How did this happen, you ask? Well, have a sit and let me tell you! It all started on a hot day on the streets of Chiang Mai.....we get on our scooters and of course, mine is all sorts of jacked up. That's right, it was the scooters fault ;) This particular scooter decided it would be a good idea to randomly kill while I was goin along (kill as in stop moving, not kill as in shoot balls of flames at pedestrians) but then jerk forward with more momentum then in the first place. AKA it was trying to kill me. (This time kill as in cracking my skull into a million pieces, not kill as in stop me from moving). So as fate would have it, on my first turn sure enough my scooter stops then having a force greater then Yoda himself (ya I just went there) the thing jerked forward. Then time stopped. I hope you picture the next train of events in slow motion. As I am hurling forward I see this guy on his scooter. Stationary. He just stared at me, coming straight at him. And I can only imagine that the image on my face was trying to communicate "I am terrified, but also I apologize for what is about to happen." I knew it was coming but there was nothing I could do. He knew it was coming. But there was nothing he could do either. I swiped him. I am not quite sure the extent of my swiping but I MIGHT have gotten his foot. At least he has a story to tell. This collision caused me to be thrown from my scooter onto the pavement where I got my lovely cut you see above along with crazy bruises located on my inner thighs, chest, neck and arm. I am lucky I didn't get run over by the car I landed in front of. I almost wish I would have, so end the embarrassment. The scooter was on top of me, and the throttle was hitting the ground at just the right angle to make my back tire go "RRRRRRRRRIIINNNGDDDDDINNNGDIIIINGGGGGG" and if I already hadn't drawn enough attention the horn on my scooter was honking. There you have it. I am an imbecile. But after the commotion ensued, I actually had quite an enjoyable scoot. 

Temple we found on our ride

The extremely smoggy view

The rest of Chiang Mai was filled with great conversations, shopping, and gorgeous temples. Overall, another glorious weekend in Thailand. And just for your personal enjoyment, I will add these. Because I know you want these burned into your memory:

Peace and Love :)