Terrific Tigers in Thailand!!

We finally saw Tigers! Great big powerful roaring Tigers! And we patted them!!!!!!
It was just brilliant!

Thailand Holiday

Aug 8, 2006 - 24 Photos

ok starting from where I left you last...

Chiangmai
Tuesday
We checkout an IT mall here and decide it doesn't have much to offer. So we do the next best (?) thing - go sunglasses shopping. ARG!! Mike knows kindof what he likes, but then checks over each pair with his optomically trained eye. I get a cute little pair of red sunglasses customised with darker lens' and Mike goes a pair of mean looking grey sunglasses. Exhausted by pursuits of a shopping nature, we head off for some site seeing.
Wat Doi Suthep
It's a steep uphill winding climb and its starting to rain but our taxi driver just keeps overtaking anyone and everything else on the road. We dodge the (seemingly) neccessary hawkers of tat at the entry and ascend via the cable car. Once we see the staircase the cable car becomes a mystery as to why it was built - it doesn't go very far!
We have to take our shoes off immediately - which is probably a good thing because the rain is extremely heavy! We walk up to the top level and Mike takes a million photos of the golden stupa. We get to see a really well kept Wat where there has been careful restoration of all the paintings, buildings and buddhas. We make a small donation in one of the Buddha houses (?) and the monk ties some string around my wrist and says "for good luck". Mike sneaks a photo of him for me. After a little coffee, we find the view of Chiangmai. Its lovely. We can see and hear more rain to come, so we leave.
That night I come down with a terrible case of gastro - probably caused by the spicy salad I'd had that afternoon.
Wednesday
felt sick, stayed in bed until 4pm.
We went off to see a movie at the local cinema and saw Miami Vice. Couldn't recommend it as overall I didn't like it. It doesn't say much for a movie when the audience only laughs twice during the whole movie and one of the time is someone being shot in the head!
Thursday
still feeling sick but wanting to see Tigers more than wallow in bed! So we fly to Bangkok and catch a taxi to Kanchanaburi.
We get there ok and that night Mike comes down with gastro!! ARG!!
Friday
We have booked in to go to the Tiger Temple this afternoon and I'm hoping Mike can make it. We take it easy all morning - do nothing at all and wait for our 3.30 bus.
Mike manages to hold it together and we are on a truck taxi with an Intrepid tour group off to the Tiger Temple. I'm so excited at this point I'm grinning all the
way in the bus!
We walk up through these massive gates and follow the sounds of the occasional roars!
There are so many tourists here that we have to queue to go pat the Tigers and we find out later that the volume of people through is why they now chain down the Tigers. They didn't use to. It is an amazing experience patting the Tigers. I am guided from Tiger to Tiger. Mike is the last person allowed in for the day and we have heaps of photos to show for it!!! They show us all the other animals they keep by feeding them pumpkins and surrounding us with Ox, Cows, Pigs, Pony's, Chickens and Peacocks.
We bus back to Bangkok and find our way to Wendy House (Which is really good!).

Saturday The Queen's Birthday
I get to see all the photos and write this post while Mike has an extra sleep. Fingers crossed he'll be feeling better soon.

Enjoy the photos - some taken by Mike, some by our guides (Tiger Temple) and some by me.

kisses
Susie

Thailand Holiday

Aug 8, 2006 - 24 Photos