Tigers

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We bussed down from Sukhothai back to Bangkok on a very tight time schedule as we had one day scheduled in Bangkok and our sole aim for that day was to do a tour to the Kanchanaburi province to see the bridge over the river Kwai and also to see some tigers at a buddhist monastery. Our bus was due to arrive in Bangkok at 3.30pm so we had about 2 and a half hours to get to a travel agent to book ourselves on the tour, easy - or so we thought. Unfortunately we ran into a massive thunderstorm about 2 hours away from Bangkok which brought traffic to a standstill and numerous accidents occurred. We eventually arrived at the bus station at 5pm to find our bags were soaked as they were at the bottom of the bus and the water was so deep it had seeped into the bag storage, then we had to stand with wet packs on for 20mins in the queue for taxis which were scarce in the terrible weather. We finally made it to our accommodation and the travel agent around 6pm and were just in time to squeeze ourselves onto the tour the next day.

We left at 7am and first stopped a couple of hours later at a cemetery for victims of the war. Then we carried on to the Bridge over River Kwai museum, built on the river next to the bridge. Had a wander around here and read about some horrific stories before crossing the river via the bridge. From here we were bussed to a train station were we had to wait around an hour for a 20 minute train ride along the railway that was built by the prisoners of war under control of the Japanese. We had some charming Canadians in our group who were as hungover as buggery and had to get the bus stopped for them 3 or 4 times on the way so they could stop for a quick spew, they then managed to not get off the train at the designated stop (even though we had been told next time it stops to get off!) so our tour operator was not impressed and had to chase the train around Kanchanaburi while the rest of the group had lunch.

After lunch we had a brief stop at a waterfall before continuing onto the highlight of the day - the tigers. We were allowed to walk in around the tigers, one by one with the staff and you were able to touch them and get photos. Some people cuddled the tigers but we were not so game. They are amazing animals and you realised that they are still pretty dangerous when the monks asked the father of a small child to move him out of the sight of the tigers so he did not get mauled.

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Comments

[Charlotte]

Tigers
Hi Guys...those photos are awesome (should have used an O!!) What an amazing experience. See you in about 10 weeks!!! Can't wait :o)

[Potts]

YAH!
Yah! you found some tigers!! hehe, cool pics...