of elephant and shops. day 2 chiang mai

only 2 places of interest on the second day- orchid farm and elephant camp. i won't even call the orchid farm an attraction because it was quite a small one. well, let me put in the night market in the city at night as one too although we only had about 90 mins there.
and the rest of the time? gosh...it was all sales-pitches at cut-throat stores brought by the tour guide.

our first stop- bai orchid farm. there was a butterfly farm too but we couldn 't spot any butterfly inside. the ladies said the orchid farm was not as big as the one we have in ulu yam. but the flowers bloomed well there because of the weather.

some of the orchids.

i bought a lacquered orchid ring. not the one in the photo. that was slightly too big, i bought a smaller one. they also pinned an orchid on your shirt when you entered.

then we headed to mae ping elephant village which is approximately 60km from chiang mai. it is situated in the middle of a forest and there are daily elephant shows. you can go for elephant rides too, 800B an elephant which sits 2 persons. the elephant ride took about 30 mins and it brought you onto a hill in the jungle and crossing a river. i think those who went on the ride enjoyed themselves a lot albeit the strong rocking motion. i did not go because i had been on one, so i became the unofficial photographer. i wanna cry when i see all my own photos, they were all blurry because the hands which held my camera were shaky. so everyone had nice shots except me.

this forest was the location for the shooting of the movie 'ramboo 4' because i saw mr stallone's photo with the owner of the camp on the wall. the elephants taking a bath at the river before their show.

elephants and their antics. it was unbelievable seeing these heavy and huge creatures standing on their hind and front legs. i like the one where they stood on their front legs and kicking their hind legs up. volunteers also had a chance to be massaged by the elephants as seen in the middle row photo on the right. that was one of our group members. another foreigner was seen covering his groin the whole time during the 'massage'. everyone had a good laugh.

photos for those who went on elephant rides. everyone went except me and uncle boon. 10B one photo please.

lunch was at a thai-chinese-muslim restaurant. so no pork. the tomyam soup was the best here.

what do we have again? cauliflower and cabbage, chicken curry, fried egg, tom yum soup, potato and chicken and a fish...and oh, fruits lah.

then after lunch....zzzzz...'shopping'. from one shop to another. gosh, i was bored. it was another bright sunny day and we had to spent it in shops!!!

the prasit honey...the bees were said to feed on poppy flower nectar, blah blah blah. well, at least we got a few cups of refreshingly cool honey drink. the photo at the bottom right, is how to prove whether your honey is pure or not. put a spoonful of honey on a plate. then add cold water and turn the plate till the honey and water spread over the base. if you can see honeycomb shapes formed by the honey, then it is pure.

shop no.2- gems gallery. see see all the bling bling only lah. many westerners were buying...it is cheap for them i guess because of the currency exhange rate.

next, shop no.3- handmade saa paper umbrella. the name of the tree which the paper is made from is the saa three, hence the name.

artists waiting for customer. you can get them to paint on your clothings, etc. 2 from our group got them to paint on their bags. 50B for one picture.

some processes of making the umbrella.

the umbrellas and saa paper drying in the sun.

shop no. 4- bird nest. no one bought any bird nest but most of them had a bowl of the soup there at 150B a bowl.

shop no.5- leather shop. the sales person showing us the different types of skins there: stingray ( my fav), calf, goat, and crocodile.

phew...the end of those shop tours at 5p.m. then the tour guide dropped us at the largest shopping mall in chiang mai- the central plaza airport mall. it was like 1-utama and had some interesting shops. we shoud have spent more time here ...but you know lah, the guide would not get any comission when we shop here kan? i only managed to roam 2 out of the 5 floors in the plaza and got myself a bracelet and a tee.

dinner was buffet at the hotel which we were supposed to stay in the first place in the city centre. the spread was good and there were a lot of varieties to choose from. we ate till we din wanna move and walk out to the night market outside.

there was a band too and a dance floor for those who wanna show some moves.

we were on chang klan road and this is where the most famous night bazaar is i think. it stretches quite long and round the block. things here were quite cheap but that was after much hard bargaining.

if you had run out of thai baht, fret not. they have mobile money exchange cars from the banks waiting at the road junction. so convenient.

that sums up day 2.