My Travel Blog

  I love flowers, but only to receive them. I am not good at gardening, in fact, all the plants I bought died after some time. Thus, even if I like orchids at Sai Nam Phung Orchid, Mae Rim, Chiangmai, it didn’t come across my mind of getting one, no matter how pretty they are.

This orchid farm is only a stone throw away from the monkey school, and our taxi driver suggested that we pay it a visit. You have to pay an entrance fee, but I can’t remember how much was it. It’s not expensive though.

The orchids are pretty here, but my kids didn’t have interests for flowers. They would rather play hide and seek in the garden than admiring the orchids!

I guess you can get some souvenirs here too, not not custom rubber stamp with orchid designs la…

We were only there for a brief visit, but for our next trip to Chiangmai, we will skip the orchid farm.

Frankly, I think this monkey school in Mae Rim, Chiangmai is a disappointment. Unless you don’t mind wasting your annual travel insurance to fly over here to see some monkey shows, I would suggest that you skip this place. There is nothing attractive here, and I don’t quite like the smell of the school. It’s monkey’s urine, and it’s quite unpleasant. I wonder why they don’t wash it up?

Monkeys perform tricks playing basketball, riding tricycles and counting exercises and a demonstration of how monkeys climb trees and retrieve coconuts. Show times at 11:00, 12:15, 13:15, 15:15 and 16:15 with an entry fee. (0 5329 8818).

If you are interested to see the shows, that’s the number to call to get to the school. Take note that the monkeys might not be friendly to kids, so make sure that you children do not touch the adult monkeys. They can hold the baby monkeys though, if they are bold enough.

 Our taxi driver suggested that we had lunch at Tiger Kingdom. There is a restaurant here, located just by the fence where you can see a few adult tigers roaming in the enclosure area. It’s one of the famous attractions here in Chiangmai, and if you are interested to have close encounter with tigers, this is the right place for you.

Different pricing for different categories of tigers.

You can close to dine at the tables, which are close to the tigers.

We only paid for the baby cubs because my kids are too young and small. Tigers will see them as preys, and there is a risk of getting hurt.

You can go into the enclosure area of adult tigers, if you are big and brave enough.

We only chose to touch the younger cubs of 4 months old.

You have to remove your MBT shoes before entering the cage of the newborn cubs. No flash is allowed, if you want to snap photos of the cubs.

My kids enjoying being close to the cubs.

But there is still a risk of getting hurt here, so think about it before you decided to enter the cages.

My kids have been to a few zoos, but all of us were surprised to see how hilly Chiangmai Zoo is. At first, I was wondering why they allowed cars to be driven in the zoo area, but it didn’t take me long to realized that it’s impossible to walk and cover every corner of the zoo with 2 kids in stroller and you have to walk uphill and downhill and the place is quite big! We took the shuttle service and it’s a relieve to my back bone and feet…

You can expect to see most common animals here, like any normal zoo. But over here, there are giant pandas!

My kids had never seen real pandas before, so they were thrilled to see the pandas. However, they got bored after awhile as the pandas are pretty slow, and …just sat there and ate. LOL!

Besides that, my kids had the chance to feed the cheetah cubs, the rhino, giraffes and etc. Not to mention, they went on pony rides again!

There is an aquarium here, but we missed it. So, maybe we should visit Chiangmai Zoo Aquarium next time.

BTW, take my advice. Drive in the zoo or take the shuttle bus. It’s impossible to walk like this, if you have young children! You will be exhausted in no time! But luckily, there are a few stalls selling drinks, but I don’t think it’s enough. Do submit your business resumes to the zoo authorities if you are interested to run a business there. Hahaha! Just kidding…

Actually, I planned to visit one of those real villages, but the journey was like an hour or more away from our hotel, so we couldn’t make it. We had to get back in time to visit a few places at night, thus we could only have a brief visit at the tree tribe village near Mae Sa Elephant Camp. It’s not a real village, but something like a cultural village where a few tribes were gathered here for tourism.

I would say the living condition is not really good, but it should be better than the villages in the mountain area. You can forget about seeing the tree tribe villages wearing any Swiss Army watches, a tour to their houses showed how simple their lives are.

You can get some handicrafts here, but I’m not sure if they are pricey as comparing to other places. I only bought a few items, and to me, they were rather cheap.

Most tourists are here to see the long neck Karen Pedaung tribe, where the girls wear brass rings on their necks, wrists, below the knees and ankles. It’s their tradition to avoid being beaten by tigers, but I think the custom is carried out just for tourists these days.

Here’s a photo of how the brass ring is put on…

 I wonder if the girls do so voluntarily, but somehow, I don’t think this little girl is happy with cameras flashing at her.

If you are interested to know more about Chiangmai tree tirbes, check out the link.

 My kids love elephants. They have been on elephant rides and watched the elephant shows before, but we still brought them to Mae Sa Elephant Camp during our stay in Chiangmai. It’s one of the popular elephant camps in Chiangmai, and if you are interested to know more about it, check out the website.

We took the package deals which include the elephant show and the ride to the hilltribe village. It was pretty packed with tourists that day, so we only managed to get the ride back from the village to the camp, instead of the other way around.

Frankly, the elephant shows are just like any other shows in Bangkok, but it’s my first encounter with elephants that can paint. They are truly talented.

You can also feed and snap photos with the elephants, but the elephant owners might ask for a small fee from you. Don’t worry, it’s not really that expensive like the wine of the month at the restaurant la, so just give a few Thai bahts to them.

But if there is a choice, I won’t visit this camp again. I might bring my kids to other elephant training camps which are further away and let them try what it feels like to be an elephant keeper for a day. You can do that too, but it can be rather pricey.

I’m just back from Pattaya last week, and there are more backdated posts to be written here. I’ve been rather busy lately, so I can’t manage to update about our holidays for the past few months. I will try to update all of them as soon as possible.

For the time being, I’ve changed the template for this blog. I screwed up the codes just now, and I couldn’t seem to fix it. So, I might as well change everything! LOL!

I hope that you will like it. So, Chinese New Year is over now, and have you gained weight? I surely did. Now I really need some weight loss pills!