Strike one, Thailand!(Temples, Zoos, and crooked tuktuk drivers)

We are now in Chiang Mai.
It is very touristy, it feels maybe even more touristy than Bangkok did. But it is very nice.
Yesterday, we started off our day with a trip to the train station, and we dropped off our luggage to lighten our load as we made our way through the city. Thank goodness we did, it was REALLY hot, and we wound up doing a lot of walking.
We started off with a trip to the Grand Palace and the temple of the Emerald Buddha. We were on our way from Wat Pho (the temple with the 47 meter reclining Buddha) and a security guard stopped us.
"Hello, and welcome to Bangkok!"
"Hi, thanks!"
(about five minutes of small talk about Canada, Thailand, and what nice people we were)
"Where are you going in today?"
"We were going to the grand palace, and to see the emerald Buddha."
"Oh, I'm very sorry, the day is Wednesday, and today, they pray until one, so no emerald Buddha. Maybe, my friend the tuktuk driver can bring you on tour of three other temples, only 300 bath"
(Jessie, suspiciously) "Oh maybe, we will just walk ahead"
"But, my friend the tuktuk driver..." (getting in our way)
"NO THANKS! RESTAURANT! EAT NOW! BYE!"
We did not get a snack on the way to the temple, but it was a handy way to get out of there. On the way to the temple, which was open, we saw about four or five guys working the same scam. pretty bad.
Strike one Thailand.

The temple and Grand Palace were nothing short of crazy. I've never seen anything that shiny, and everything was covered with mosaics, some pieces were mirrored, so the whole place shimmered.
The emerald Buddha was actually quite small, maybe only real person size, but it was seated on top of a huge tower of gold and tributes that was probably thirty or forty feet tall. There were no pictures though, but I got a good postcard!
We woound up skipping the Grand Palace. We weren't ona tour, and I just wanted to see the Golden Buddha, so we just looked at stuff on our way in and out.
After that, we got Thai massages at the Wat Pho Thai Massage school which is the main school in Thailand. It was very cool. No lights, and eucalyptus mist all around. I got a massage from the biggest woman I have ever seen, she was about 6'2" and built like a linebacker. But man... what a great massage. It's cool - they rub you with their hands, their feet, their arms. and it's only $5 for half an hour!
We then went to the Bangkok zoo, which was pretty good. Not as big as the Toronto Zoo, but pretty nice. Very cool birds, and they had tiny monkeys.
We got to the train station pretty early for our train, but that was good, I think. The sleeper train was quite an experience too, but not the greatest sleep. When we got on, a guy came around and offered us orange juice, and we thoguht "Sweet! Free orange juice!" Not really. About half an hour later the guy came by again to collect 40 bath, basically, more than most meals we have had so far. The next car was a party, but unfortunately, when we went, there were no seats.
AFter the beds got set up, we got into Jessie's bunk with the curtains drawn and looked out the window. There was a fire in the distance, and the whole sky around it was orange. It was pretty amazing.
I woke up with a kink in my neck.
When we got to Chiang Mai, wwe had no idea where to go. We had no plans! We got into a cab, and told him to take us to the best, cheapest guesthouse in the Lonely Planet Guide. Well, our cab driver had a better idea! Why not just drop into a guest hosue that is owned by his sister first to compare? Sure, we said, we had no plans anyways, so why not give it a try?
We got there, and we were served some free coffee, as "a welcome to Chiang Mai". The rooms weren't ready, but luckily, his "sister" was there to give us a little talk about an exciting trekking opportunity! The talk was hilarious, and the woman who gave it was pretty theatrical in it. It was very rehearsed, and she kept making jokes about how trekking will show the girls if their boyfriends really love them (carrying their things, them) or where to find their boyfriends if they didn't come home (No funny no honey no money, I'll teach you Thai boxing!). Unfortunately, when we revealed that we had our trekking quota met already, the rooms were unavailable. Oh well... thanks for the free coffee.
We finally found a guest house, and it is prety nice. We're going to stay here, I think. It's not the greatest, but it's safe, and we know we won't have to find something somewhere else now, which seems to be pretty difficult, because of the package deals and the sheer number of tourists through here.
This afternoon we checked out the Chiang Mai zoo, which was really really big. ANd very poorly designed, and it seemed like maybe some of the zookeepers had quit and just not been replaced. Cages were empty all over the place, and water was murky in all the marine exhibits. But we got to see some leopards chase eachother (one chased, the other looked incredibly unimpressed and unamused) and some chimps strike some very amusing poses. Most exciting for me were the painted storks, and the bird enclosure that was a few acres big and had a lot of peacocks.
Tonight we checked out the night market, which was basically more of the same. I bought some more shorts, and a scarf. I never imagined I would have to come to Thailand to find a good scarf, but there you have it. I also got some sweet aviators, finally. They make me look/feel really creepy and somehow that makes me happy. Also, I got some cheap binoculars for next week.
Tomorrow: temples, and maybe a scooter rental.