Trip Day 8-end of Chiang Mai

We finished both our trip and our stay in Chiang Mai on this day.  We separated and 1/2 of us had McDonald's for breakfast and the other 1/2 Starbuck's.  Who knew were were in Northern Thailand?!  We had an evening flight out (and the airport was about 30-ish minutes away) so we took a chance doing/learning about traditional parasols.  After the Great Wall, water taxi's past Bangkok Temples and Palaces, elephant camps, and treetop zip lining, we weren't too sure.  It ended up being something that the kids enjoyed, and I'm sure the ice cream helped. We hired a driver for 500 baht (for 1/2 of the day) and started at Bo Seng Parasol Handicrafts, which is free.

We stopped at the extremely large GEMS store on the way back to the hotel.  It is mind-boggling large and full of all types of gems.  You could drop the price of a house on one item, or like we did, the price of a McDonald's value meal.

We hung out at the hotel, had Subway for dinner, went to the airport and caught an evening flight which brought us home to Singapore in 3 hours.

If we'd only had more time:
Tiger Kingdom (10-15 minute personal visits with a cub or a tiger)--4 km from hotel
Doi Sutep area (for Phu Phing Palace and Hmong Village)--about 1 hour from hotel?
Long Neck Village--about 3 hours from hotel

If we could go anytime and do something spectacular:
Loy Krathong Festival  (Festival of Lights--an older than 700 year old custom of placing handmade floats decorated with flowers and candles on waterways, generally in April)

Other people we have known to go have done:
Zoo and Night Safari
Zoo Aquarium
Chiang Rai (to see the "white temple" two hours from Chiang Mai)