Thailand Day 3: Flight of the Gibbon and massage by a prisoner

Day 3 we had to get up early yet again, 6 am this time, to eat breakfast at the hotel and be picked up by The Flight of the Gibbon people. Flight of the Gibbons is a tour group that takes you on a zip line tour of the jungle and then takes you on a hike to this beautiful waterfall. We drove for about an hour to the headquarters of the Flight of the Gibbon, which is located in a tiny village in the mountains.

After arriving, we were ushered into the office where we signed release formed that basically stated that we would listen to our guide and if we didn't we might die. We were definitely prepared to listen and not die. We then all headed out to the platforms to start our zip line tour.

The zip lines were all so amazing and fun. We also met a cute little 9 year old named Lucy and her mom on the tour. Lucy was so cute on some of the lines, but she was actually less scared than her mom most of the time. It was kind of funny.

Flying through the trees, sometimes having to avoid them and trying to watch for gibbons in the trees was so fun. Unfortunately we never saw any Gibbons, but the group after us did. We also had to be dropped straight down three different platforms through the tour to eventually each the ground level. I was really mad at one point though. I bought a brand new digital camera, and the lens cap wasn't attached to the camera with a string. I was afraid I would lose it at some point, but I had been pretty good with it so far. Cody and I went to go on a couples line,w here two people can go together, and my bag got tangled in the line, so not only did I almost pull one of the guides off the platform, my bad gave me a huge bruise on my arm, and my camera cap fell off into the jungle. Oh well, at least I didn't lose my brand-new camera.

After we finished the lines and were back on the ground, they took us to a nearby waterfall that we hiked up and we were able to take quite a few beautiful pictures. The only annoying thing about the whole tour and hike was the humidity. The heat wasn't bad, since we were in the jungle, but the humidity was probably 100%, so we were wet the whole time.

After the hike, they took us back to the main office for lunch. We had some delicious green curry, rice, chicken and veggies, and some fruit.

After lunch, they took us back to the hotel and we changed our clothes and headed out for our Old City walking tour so that we could see some wats and get a massage.

We checked out Wat Chiang Man, Anusawari Sam Kasat, and a couple of other random wats along the way. We also picked up some Pad Thai at a street vendor, which was delicious. We then decided to take Lonely Planet's advice and head to the nearby womens prison to get a massage. They were full when we got there, but they let us wait, and we were lucky, because they were not letting anyone else in. Unfortunately for us, some of their massages took a little long and the prisoners aren't allowed to work after a certain time, so we were only able to get a 1/2 hour massage instead of an hour, but we got a discount. The massages were pretty intense. A lot of the things they were doing felt good, but a few of the things actually kind of hurt.

The prisoners aren't violent offenders and they are scheduled to get out between 30-90 days. The massage center is intended to help them save money for their release as well as have a life skill so that they don't have to get back into illegal activities when they are released. Many of the women actually go to work at another massage center after they are released.

After the massage, we went to see Wat Phan Tao, stop for a drink and Wat Phra Singh.

Afetr we finished our tour, we headed back to the hotel to clean up and then pick up our finished clothes. We were very excited to find that they fit perfectly on the first try. We then started packing up our things, and headed out to the Saturday night market to buy more art and things. We spent as much money as we could spare (and wished we had more, we are obsessed with picking up foreign art) and we picked up dinner from the market. Our hotel picked us up and we headed back to the hotel to finish packing our new art, and we went to bed.