Big Kitty Tour Date

Friday 1 June

Last night we booked a tiger temple tour (for today...).  Today was so cool, this morning  our guide Maya, was waiting for us downstairs at 6.50am and we walked out to our transport for the day, this pimped out (no jokes it was semi gangster it had to slow down to go over bumps) Silver van, for just the 2 of us, it had a single reclining chairs for you to sit on, and well plush interior with a tv in the roof! it was ridiculously cool.  So we had our English speaking guide Maya, and a driver ( we never got told his name, I don't think he spoke a word of English)

check out the automatic sliding doors

The first stop on the tour was the Train Market, about an hour out of Bangkok.  It is on a train track, and when the train comes through (8 times a day)  the people quickly move their wears and canvas rooftop to their stalls off the tracks so the train can pass, nuts I tell you.

See the tracks, NBD

As we walked along the tracks checking out all the goods, the smell of raw meat and seafood was overwhelming, there was one stall that had chicken and some other meats all sitting next to each other and it was just oozing juices onto the floor, that was bit of a dry retchy moment.  Maya bought us some fruit, Mangosteen, it was delishimo kinda like a lychee.

The signal for the train coming went off and like a flash people were bringing in the stalls, it was funny there are some asian tourists that are just as ruthless as they are in NZ, and had to be told time and time again to clear the way, then toot toot along came the train.  Some man didn't bring in some of this stuff that was right on the floor, and the train just zoomed over it, it looked all good and in one piece, butIi sure as hell would not eat that squid.  We also tried sticky rice in bamboo, it too was delish but very sweet.

From there we headed to the floating markets, it was random getting there, you go down all these rurally back street roads, (the pimpmobile did have a few bumps to conquer).  We got into out boat, paddled by a man.  There are houses along the canals as you paddle in the direction of the markets, and lots of reeds in the water.

The markets were amazing they are are very commercial now aimed at the tourists, unlike they used to be according to our guide.  People use a hook to pull your boat along side their stalls, and start asking you "what you like?", and "what you buy?".  Some boats were motorized with a 2 meter propeller adn they zoomed along, but always seemed to be stalling, and then a big puff of smoke as they start again.  Maya bought us some banana pankcakes, delicious again, but so sweet, too sweet for me.

Our next stop was lunch at the River Kwai, at a restaurant that sat just above the river bed, it was beautiful.  We had a green curry, another type of curry that was wrapped in fried egg, some pork triangle things, and oyster sauce asparagus and carrots.  It was good, but dam son me and spice do not mix well I could not eat that much, but Ell was making a train on it.

View from restaurant, my mouth is still on fire here

Next stop Tiger Temple.  This had come highly recommended to us from cousin Nick and wow he was right.  Because it was a temple women have to have sleeves and covered knees, so I was wearing my merino cardy (as you are not supposed to wear pink/orange/red colours with the tigers - which my other cardy was like, apart from the leopard spotted one I also have with me but thought it also may not be approps) so as you can imagine I was hot to trot.

You walk through the park which has deer, pigs and cow-like animals.

oh my sister I wasn't expecting to see you here

And then you walk up to all these tigers just casually sleeping chained up to trees or the ground.  Wow up close these kitties are amazing.  There are lots of volunteers around that take your hand and place you by the cat and you pat them firmly, and sometimes you are given a tail or paw to hold too, whilst another volunteer is snapping away with your camera.  So we got heaps of photos with different aged tigers.  They were really sleepy as it was the afternoon and they had been playing and fed earlier.

You see he is tired, sleepy kitty

The next thing we did was walk the tigers back to the canyon, so 20 people with 1 tiger at a time walk single file and take turns holding the reins and patting the cat, another photo opp here.

There was afternoon playtime that you could pay extra to be part of, we watched from above as tourists with the volunteers got into the tigers pool to play with them, as you can see in the photos, it was amazing, but I would be shitting my pants if I was in there, because the cats would run out of the water and then come rushing back into play with the bags on the sticks and play fighting with each other and almost crash into you.

Our last stop of the day was back at the bridge over the River Kwai, (built originally by prisoners of war - captured by the Japanese, back in the day, but this original bridge no longer exists).  We went for a stroll along it ( but not all the way).

It was a 2 1/2 hour drive back to Bangkok, and we got caught in rush hour traffice, crawling worse that Auckland traffic for about an hour.  All in all a wicked day.