A Tiger Day

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We were supposed to get a motorbike today to go and see the longneck tribe, however we turned up at Tony's and the bike hadn't been returned. He was very apologetic so we decided to do the Tiger Kingdom instead. The place that Chris had planned to go to was an 8 hour drive away one way and Chris hadn't realised so I suppose it's lucky we didn't end up starting that journey!

We arrived at the Tiger Kingdom finally after our taxi ran out of petrol! The Kingdom wasn't what I expected at all/ You get in and there are options of which tigers you want to sit with and stroke all carying in prices depending on whether you want to see big cats or little cats. We went for the 7 month old tigers and the 20 month old tigers. On top of this there were option to have photos taken all of course at vast cost!

The tigers looked very well looked after and were also well trained. The only thing wrong with the whole idea is that they were all born in captivity and when they get to 2 years old they are moved to a zoo where their conditions are more restictive i.e smaller cages.

First of all we went in the cage or the pen with the 7 month old tigers. All 3 of the tigers were laying there sleeping - apparently they sleep for 18 hours a day. I went straight to stroke the first ones face, but you're not supposed to do that! I was quickly told that you must approach from the back and should only stroke their back and tummy. We got some good photos and the keepers actively encouraged us to put our heads down to the tiger "using them as a pillow" Within the cage there are parts separated off with electric fencing that Chris walked into!

Next we saw the big tigers - they were 20 months old and all females. One of them was really sleepy the other two were quite active which was quite difficult at time when you have to make sure you approach them from behind.

After doing the main toursit attraction, we wandered around looking at the other tigers. There were some really small baby ones who were adorable! We also saw one the keepers training a big male tiger. He would play with them and the tiger would sneak up on him as though he was prey, but as soon as the keeper turned around and held his stick up the tiger would back down.

Our taxi man had waited for us and so we asked him to take us to the Karen longneck village as Chris really wanted to get photos. Just to get to go to the village it cost 500B (a tenner) so I said for just Chris to go and I'd look at the photos!

That evening we met up with Haizea and went for dinner at the Lemon Grass which was really nice with excellent service. We then had a walk around the night market picking up some bargains again! Chris got a t-shirt and another Jesus top as his other one had been wrecked on the trek. He wanted a Jesus top just like the one he had before which had a toggle thing sewn on it so the guy pulled the toggle off a different top and sewed it on our one! So funny! Afterwards we went to a roof top bar and met some of the people that Haizea had met along the way. Quite a few drinks later and after a midnight or 1am snack we went back to our guesthouse.

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