Day 29 - Chiang Mai, Muay Thai, and Thai Iced Tea

Today we got up around 8 and got all our stuff packed back up into our backpacks again. We went down checked out of our room and walked across the walkway to the airport. I'll give my dad a little credit since it was really nice being able to walk 5 minutes to get to the airport. The airport wasn't busy so security and everything was a breeze. On the way to the terminal I had a 'waffle hong kong' for breakfast, which was basically a waffle wrapped around itself.

The flight left at 1130 and was another short 1 hour flight to Chiang Mai. Once we got in we took a quick 20 min tuktuk ride to our hostel. We had some lunch there, I had the pad Thai again. Once we got settled we decided to book some tours for the days we were here. This time I did all the booking!

Afterwards we decided to relax in our hotel until dinner. We left for dinner around 6 looking for a place on trip advisor. Of course it wasn't where is said it was on the site (this has happened a couple times) so we ended up eating at a random restaurant that was pretty busy. I ended up having the shrimp fried rice and a Thai iced tea. The iced tea was soooo good!! I'm not sure how they make it but it's amazing! 

After dinner we decided to walk around the markets for a little while until it was time to see the mauy Thai fight. Apparently this weekend is the annual Chiang Mai flower festival so they had a huge parade downtown with a stage and lots of people. I'm not entirely sure what was going on but it was pretty cool to see. 

- Float in the Parade

Walking through the markets I bought to tshirts that were super comfy! I think I might go back tomorrow and get another one since they're only $4-5! After an hour or so it was finally time to see the Muay Thai fight. 

We decided to get the VIP seats since it was only a couple dollars extra. It turns out the VIP was definitely worth it, our seats were ringside and we had nice cushions on the seats. The fights themselves were pretty interesting. Most of the fighters were tiny! Weighing around 115 lbs, the heaviest were 158. Needless to say I could have taken all of them! 

- Mauy Thai Feature Fight

There were 7 fights total and one of them was a 'special fight' where they blindfold 6 people and had them fight each other which was pretty funny. The last fight was a guy from Norway vs a guy from Thailand, this was the only fight with an international fighter. Through all the fights there were two knock outs and the rest were decided by the judges. The whole time the fights were going on they had this really weird and kind of obnoxious music playing. The fights started around 930 and didn't end till around 1130. 

Once the fights were over we made our way back to our hotel which was locked up so we had to have someone come let us in! Tomorrow we are doing ziplinning through the jungle!