Day 4 Thailand

Nikki's boss was nice enough to let her have both Thursday and Friday off this week, so on Thursday we took a trip north for some outdoors activities. First we rented an ATV/guide to be able to access some back roads to a rural hill tribe village. The road was super steep and muddy, so quite a challenge to keep the ATV upright. Our guide had to be about 15 years old and kept having to fix his ATV as the chain fell off. I must say that we felt significantly less hard core when we saw locals commuting up to the village on little underpowered scooters. We made it to the top though and were rewarded with an incredible misty view of the surrounding mountains shrouded in mist. The village (which was the home of our guide) was tiny and surrounded by fields on steep hillsides. We made friends with the (very cute) local kids, who had a blast playing with out knee/elbow pads.

After coming back down the mountain, we joined another few tourists to do some whitewater rafting. We had two Thai ladies in our boat who were a total crack up. The river was not all that hairy, but enough to have some fun and get wet (had to remember to keep our mouths closed…lots of elephants upstream). Was a great way to see the jungle and even saw an elephant grazing nearby as we floated down.

When we got back to Chiang Mai, we walked to a restaurant specializing on northern Thai cuisine that was recommended by one of Nikki's co-workers. We got a big platter with a little of everything, which was of course delicious. I really liked the pork sausage and stuffed bamboo shoots.

To finish up the day, we took a "tuk tuk" (three wheeled propane-powered taxi thing) to a new mall in town to see a movie. The movie we saw (transformers 2) was terrible – so bad it was comical. Didn't matter though, because the theatre was awesome!! Nikki and I got huge red plush comfy seats that recline almost horizontal. The ushers also bring you blankets and pillows when the show starts. So we pretty much paid for a relaxing nap, which was fine by me.