The sleeper train was another one of life’s lil experiences. As we had only booked one day in advance and it was Kings Birthday (public holidays) there was very little availability and we got rather lucky to get the last two top bunks. The seats get changed into beds by the staff as you want them to, it’s all very nifty! In our carriage there were numerous tourists so we felt pretty safe, but I can’t say we slept too well as the light was on, the tracks were rickety and it was just plain uncomfortable - but it was a cheap way of getting to Chiang Mai so we can’t complain. We arrived at 10am the next day and had a guy from our guesthouse meet us which was handy as we were half sleepwalking I’m sure!
The staff told us about the nearby tiger kingdom, which was such a bonus as we thought we
had missed the boat on the tigers near Bangkok as our itinerary was so full already. Anyway so that afternoon we took a 40min tuktuk ride out to the tigers where we got to see and interact with both 4 month old tigers and 13 month old tigers. This was absolutely amazing to say the least. It cost 300B (£6 or NZ$15) per person for each age group of tiger and you get to stay in each enclosure for about 20 mins. The workers are great and happy to snap your photo and answer questions etc. The 13 month old tigers were fully grown so it was quite scarey being so close to them…but you soon loosened up and next thing we 
were lying on them pretending to sleep! The only rule was not to touch them near or on their faces and never touch them from the front. We’d heard about tigers in Bangkok being drugged but I really don’t think these guys were, they mostly lazed about in the sun but we also saw one swimming and playing with a ball. As you can imagine we got a CD with 200 odd pics on it – check facebook for some of these!
The staff told us about the nearby tiger kingdom, which was such a bonus as we thought we
had missed the boat on the tigers near Bangkok as our itinerary was so full already. Anyway so that afternoon we took a 40min tuktuk ride out to the tigers where we got to see and interact with both 4 month old tigers and 13 month old tigers. This was absolutely amazing to say the least. It cost 300B (£6 or NZ$15) per person for each age group of tiger and you get to stay in each enclosure for about 20 mins. The workers are great and happy to snap your photo and answer questions etc. The 13 month old tigers were fully grown so it was quite scarey being so close to them…but you soon loosened up and next thing we 
were lying on them pretending to sleep! The only rule was not to touch them near or on their faces and never touch them from the front. We’d heard about tigers in Bangkok being drugged but I really don’t think these guys were, they mostly lazed about in the sun but we also saw one swimming and playing with a ball. As you can imagine we got a CD with 200 odd pics on it – check facebook for some of these!
We were dropped back into town and decided to check out some of the temples where we
saw plenty of Buddhist monks. A lovely local lady that we met at one of the temples suggested other places to visit and told us we shouldn’t pay more than 150B for an hour for a tuktuk (and proceeded to arrange one for us, yay). Considering we’d often been paying this amount for a single trip it was a good lesson to learn! The tuktuk took us to a few more amazing old and new temples and wats and then out to some souvenir factories before taking us home.
At 6pm we had our pre-brief for our three day jungle trek which was to start the next day. We met our guides (JJ & Al) and the rest of our group, four British guys, two Danish girls and two Dutch guys. Later we went out to have some dinner and then explored the famous Chiang Mai Night Market. I got a couple of bargain dresses and fabric handbags and wished I had way more room in my luggage for more!
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