First arriving in Chiang Mai we found a hostel and went for a look around the city. We loved it straight away, managing to actually see some Thai culture. We got a taxi up the mountains to Doi Suthep - this temple above the clothes and walked around there for a few hours admiring it before heading back to get some food. We decided to get an early night as we were shattered from the continuous travel we'd done.
Heading to tiger kingdom in the morning petrified we decided to go see the so-called 'small' and large tigers. The small we thought was big enough, growling at us every now and again. Only to be even more petrified when we were taken into the den with the big tigers, and these were huge! Thankfully having been born and raised in the kingdom and taught to be active at night they weren't as scary but the odd growl made us jump out of our skin. The next day we'd signed up for an elephant trek. Being collected at 9am we drove an hour into the mountains and started with the bamboo rafting, it looks at bit sketchy as it was down this river and rocks jutting out everywhere and we were only on a metre wide raft made entirely of bamboo. However it turned out to be a lot of fun and the Thai men were always up for a laugh, making us fall off where they could. Next we went to the elephant camp and got put on our elephant, we were under the impression it would be a flat walk but the elephants were up and down these massive hills in amongst the jungle and we were hanging on for our lives. We were then taken to these hill tribe villages were we saw the Burma longneck tribe, women start wearing these metal neck pieces at the age of 5 and gradually the neck pieces getting longer making their necks stretch! This causes the muscle to weaken so apparently if it's taken off their neck is not strong enough to hold the weight of their head so it just flops over!
Our last day we decided to rent bikes and cycle around the whole city, seeing different random temples and houses and little villages. This was good as we got to see a lot more places that tourists don't chose to see. But we ended up getting lost for about half an hour and couldn't find our way back by this point our saddle sore was agonising and we were fed up! Made our way back just in time to eat dinner and go out for our last night, flying to Macau in the morning