I’m not quite sure what spawned her obsession, but one of the things my mom most wanted to do on her trip to Thailand was go ziplining through the jungle. I had no idea that Thailand even did it, but she got on it herself and googled it and gave me some helpful information. It turned out that there was a chance to go ziplining up in the northern part of Thailand, near Chiang Mai.
Chiang Mai was on the initial list of places we were planning on going with Mom and Andrea, but because they wanted to do the trip how we were doing it, i.e., just planning as we go, we never booked anything. We later found out that the same company was opening a new zipline down closer to Bangkok, not far from Koh Chang, the island we spent time on. We planned on doing that and hanging out in a different city instead of spending the time to go all the way to Chiang Mai.
Well, as they often do when traveling for this long, the plans at the new place fell through. So we woke up one morning planning on going one place and had to think on the fly. Luckily for all of us, my wife is very smart and a quick thinker. “Why don’t we look into flights to Chiang Mai?”
A couple hours later we were on a bus back to Bangkok, got a room there, booked a flight for the following day to Chiang Mai, and completely flipped our plan on its head.
So Friday night, May 22, my birthday, we were off to Chiang Mai. After spending Saturday and Sunday just hanging out, seeing the sights, and getting to know the city better (more on all that in another post), we were off on Monday morning for the jungles surrounding Chiang Mai, off on our ziplining adventure.
In case any of you don’t know exactly what ziplining is, it’s basically flying from tree to tree up in the canopy of a jungle on a snazzy little zipline that you are harnessed into. A bit like a monkey (and if you’re still reading this, Biggs, you need to stay tuned for our visit to the monkey training facility the following day).
Megan and I had been ziplining once before on our honeymoon in Mexico, but this was a bit different. We did some trail walking from platform to platform in Mexico, and there weren’t as many ziplines. In Chiang Mai, once we took our first ride, we were in the treetop canopy for the next two and a half hours. And not only were there ziplines, but there were also two tiny, wobbly bridges we had to cross, and three abseils, which just added a little more bang for your buck and some variety to an already really cool day.
I’m not going to write too much more, except to say that we all had a great time and a great day with our guides, Dave and Tiger, and our whole group. I know Megan, Andrea, and I had a wonderful time, but it was pretty awesome to see the giant smile and child-like grin on my mom’s face the entire day. She even said to me after it was over that it was the coolest thing she had ever done.
Enjoy the pictures and videos, many taken compliments of our awesome guide, Dave, of Flight of the Gibbon.
We still have much more to update, including elephants and monkeys, more temples, 3-day intensive yoga classes (not me), and a cooking class. It’s Sunday night here in Chiang Mai as I’m posting this, and we are contemplating leaving here tomorrow after our second longest stay in a single city (after Buenos Aires). But we may stay another day, who knows? Stay tuned because we plan a fast and furrious array of postings this week.
love love love your giggling guide!!!