Fifty feet from our hostel was Tai Pae Road. For two nights leading up to new years it was filled with food venders, merchants, street massages, and lantern releases at all hours of the evening. The best part about it was the prices. Food was around a dollar a plate, beer was a dollar and a half a liter, fried crickets a silk worms were only a dollar. Yup, and by crickets I mean more like grasshoppers. My rule for this trip (and life in general) is to try anything and everything I can at least once. As put the crispy 3 inch cricket into my mouth with a trio of silk worms and began to chew, I was pleasantly surprised at the taste. Though it might not be what I order on a regular basis, I found the flavor appealing and exotic.

New Year’s Eve we spend drinking Chang beer on the rooftop terrace of our hostel with the twinkle of lanterns across the sky as far as the eye could see. It was stunning seeing the steady flow of lanterns taking off from multiple points of the city. They created what looked like a watershed across the sky, small streams of lanterns all meandering and merging into a steady river that drifted off into the distance. Before midnight we ventured to one of the lantern take off points to release a few of our own lanterns. We wrote a few messages to our family and friends on one, lit the fuse on the bottom, and as the clock stuck midnight, we released ours up into the sky with hundreds of others as fireworks burst all around us. It was a magical night that I will never forget and an unbelievable way to bring in 2015.

On one of the evenings we visited the Night Bizarre Market. It had food, live entertainment, souvenirs, massages, everything to entertain us for an evening for under $10 each. We came across some beautiful pieces of art there. Maggie purchased a detailed artwork made from buffalo hide intricately created with a hammer and a nail. The artist spend over 14 hours drawing, nailing, cutting, and paining it to create very unique souvenir. I came across a vender that specialized in insect mounting. I haven’t bought many suvonees on the trip but this booth really caught my eye. I ended up getting two pieces of work. Both pieces are insect mounts on a see-through, clear, glass, with black edging. One was a large rhinoceros beetle with its wings spread. It is probably one of the biggest insects I have ever seen. The second consists of multiple circles of the most beautiful, colorful, beetles I have ever seen. A ring of blue beetles fades into a ring of green beetles and then into a yellowish ring of beetles. I know what you are thinking, what a weird freaking souvenir. My entomology class in college gave me a huge appreciation for the insect world, not only for their beauty but also the roles they play in our existence. Back home I have an insect collection, a beautiful butterfly mounting from Coasta Rica, and a shed of my tarantula framed on transparent glass. These two new pieces will go great with the others!

Chang Mai had a ton to offer for visitors. We decided to try our luck white water rafting. Even though it was the low season and we got stuck a lot, we had a blast floating down the rapids with a huge bottle of whisky coke. It is so surreal to be floating down a river and see two elephants crossing with their owner for bath time, definitely not something I see on our float trips back home.

One of our other favorite activities we did in Chiang Mai was an elephant encounter. We spend an entire day at an elephant camp. We started the morning with a quick lesson in elephant commands so we could control our overgrown horses as we rode them bareback through the jungle. After a quick practice ride we were fed lunch before heading out again. On our second ride, we ventured down to the river where we got to play with the elephants in the water. It was obvious that this was the highlight of the elephants and our day. The giant beasts played like little kids as they rolled, splashed, and frolicked in the water as we climbed all over them and splashing them with the cool, refreshing, river water. It was a day I don’t think any of us will ever forget.

Though we had a good experience with the elephants, we couldn’t help but to notice some of the conditions of the camp. The elephants seemed to be moderately taken care of, but in their off time we noticed they were chained to trees which we didn’t like. There are many camps like this in Chiang Mai, and unfortunately you don’t know the conditions of the camp until you visit them. On our bus ride to the camp we did notice a very impressive one. The elephants had a VERY large island on the river to roam freely without chains when they were not entertaining guests. Hopefully the camp we visited will begin to notice some of the more appropriate conditions other camps have and use them as a model to make the appropriate adjustments.

On our last day of Chiang Mai, Garrett and I visited the Tiger Kingdom. Another questionable human-animal interaction. Tiger Kingdom allows guests to get hands on and up close with baby and adult tigers. The tigers are hand raised from birth with human interaction constantly making them similar to gigantic house cats. There were several large enclosures each housing up to 5 adult tigers. Your trainer enters the enclosure with you and monitors your interaction with the big kitties. It was incredible to simple walk into an enclosure with 5 adult tigers freely roaming about.

Many people ask if they are sedated to allow the human contact with the larger cats, but that didn’t seem to be the case. On a few occasions I saw the adult cats go up on their hind legs and claw and play with each other with full energy as tourist watched from IN the cage with them. Though the cats live a life of constant petting and human interactions, they seemed to be well taken care of and very healthy animals. Some seemed to really enjoy the interactions like the one I was petting. He liked the petting so much he rolled over so I could scratch his belly as he let out a fully body stretch!