Ayutthaya and Chiang Mai

Hello!

On our journey to the north we stopped off first at Ayutthaya, the capital before Bangkok. We spent a couple of days cycling around this beautiful and quaint city, riddled with ancient temples and ruins. We had our 7th year anniversary there with a Thai massage and air-con room as a treat! As my personal opinion, anyone who wants a Thai massage has to be a serious masochist - you get elbowed all over and then hope the pain is worth it, but its really not - you still ache days later!

After Ayutthaya we got a sleepless sleeper train to Chiang Mai, where we've been staying for about 4-5 days, as we're waiting for our Vietnam visas (looks like it might be another 3 or so days). So we've been scooting all around the city, visiting the Chiang Mai Zoo, which by the way is the biggest zoo ever!! We got to feed giraffes (they have super long tongues!), elephants and leopards (these guys we fed through the bars).






The other day we randomly decided to go stroke tigers!! So for a small price Laurence and I stroked 9 month old lions who were a bit moody, then young 10 month old tigers, who were adorable and 3 big boy + girl tigers, who were actually the calmest and we felt safest with them!

On the way back from the tigers we were on an animal high and went to see a monkey show, after which we got to hold and play with a baby monkey!! All I can say is, I reeeeeeeaally want a baby monkey pet now! It was the cutest thing I've ever held and acted just like a normal human baby (except the occasional back flips) with sucking its thumb and pulling and playing with anything it touched.











Tomorrow we are leaving for Pai, which is a 5-6 hour bus ride from here and we'll probably be back in Chiang Mai in a couple of days to pick up our passports and then head off to Laos. Hope all is well at home and we'll update again soon!

Lots of love,
Rozzi & Laurence
xxx