Chiang Mai: Flight of the Gibbon

We woke up way too early (the bus picked us up at 6 am) to drive out of Chiang Mai to Flight of the Gibbon. This is “the best tourist attraction in Thailand” and is a series of zip lines, repels, and suspension bridges through the canopy of the rainforest, also home to a gibbon refuge. Even though we didn’t see any gibbons, we definitely heard them! Not really knowing what to expect, we had a great time flying though the upper branches of the rainforest and then repelling down to the forest floor. There was a super man zip line, where you literally had to jump off a platform and wait for the line to catch before flying over to a big rope net and pulling yourself back up that to the next platform. There was also a backwards zip line, a “sit like Buddha” zip line, and a buddy repel down one of the biggest trees I have even seen. Our guides were hilarious and played practical jokes on us all day, and it was a lot of fun!

As part of the Gibbon package, we were taken to a waterfall that was pretty unimpressive, but we are convinced we have been jaded by the amazing-ness of Erawan in Kanchanaburi. We walked up some very steep, slippery stairs and enjoyed the overview of the rainforest more than the falls themselves. After local lunch and our trip back to Chiang Mai, we decided to meet with an Aussie couple from the adventure that also wanted to spend the afternoon at Wat Doi Suthep.
We hopped into a taxi with Gary and Cindy and drove up the winding, never ending road to the temple overlooking all of Chiang Mai. We proceeded to walk up the 300 steps and admire the architecture, the Buddha images, the locals meditating, and the views of the city. While up there, we learned that in Thailand there is a Buddha statue and posture for every day of the week, although Gary and I could only piece together about half of them from memory. We were all blessed by the resident monks before heading back into town.

Before heading to the Night Bazaar to wander around, we went to an all you can eat Japanese style restaurant. There were trays upon trays of sushi (which I have been craving for at least a week) and a train that snaked through the whole restaurant with a variety of raw food. Large bowls were brought out and kept hot so that we could cook our choice of raw things in our soup. The food was fantastic and for the first time in Thailand we felt that we had eaten ourselves into oblivion!