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Published: March 3rd 2008
2nd March - Tiger Time in Kanchanaburi
Today we planned a day trip to Kanchanaburi in the West of Thailand, a two hour bus journey from Bangkok. Arriving at 9AM our first stop was the floating market. The river was full of wooden boats with allsorts being sold. Mostly women shouted from the boats, advertising their goods and parts of the river reached gridlock with all the sellers. This is the kind of thing you see on the adverts! I saw fruits I had never seen before and we all had a taste with the woman laughing as we tried a very sour fruit. After a quick trip up river on a longboat with a motor (similar to that in Bangkok) we were off in the minibus to our next stop.
We reached another market which specialised only in hand carved wooden pictures. It was amazing to see how much time and effort had gone into sculpting the large scale rainforest scenes, some of which had taken 6 months to make!
We then went to a snake show. Really random but pretty cool as Thai men wrestled with the snakes! Then it was on to the infamous Bridge
over the river Kwai. A great historical sight. A little risky as we walked across though as there was nothing to protect you falling from the railway into the river!
After lunch we were then onto the most exciting part of the day - Tiger Temple. This is a large rescue centre for many animals, but particularly for Tigers. The centre was founded by a monk who rescued several tiger cubs after their mother was killed by poachers. It differs to any other rescue centre in that the tigers are all very comfortable around humans as they are brought up by volunteers. All the animals are also allowed to run free without being kept in cages. We made straight for Tiger Canyon where the big cats are kept, seeing peacocks, wild boar and deer along the way.
The Tigers were amazing! Being able to touch them was something I never thought possible and it was incredible to see how powerful they really are. After seeing 5 tigers we had to get going as our minibus was to leave soon. On the way back we saw the baby tiger cubs being taken for exersise and decided to follow. Forming
a circle round the 2 cubs we all sat on the floor as they played in the middle, as well as sitting on us! They even had their own toys! Speaking to the helpers (alot of whom were Australian/American) they agreed this was the best job in the world. One of the girls was the cubs 'tiger mom' and had looked after them from birth. Then we were told that we had to stay put for a while because the big cats were being moved for the evening. All the other animals were cleared off the road and the tigers came by. It was amazing! As soon as they had passed it was feeding time for all the other animals and a truck drove along the road with all the food. We were walking back at the time and it was as if we had been caught in a stampede! Oxe, wild boar and horses all ran by after food. After finally making it back, a little late, to our minibus we were back to Bangkok.
Definitely one of the best experiences so far!
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The floating market
Dad
non-member comment
Great experience
Hi Nicholas. This looks pretty amazing! Seems like you are enjoying Thailand. Take care. Dad