Friday, February 3, 2012

Thailand #3

Day 4: Tiger day! The tiger temple was about 2 hours away, so we got in our colorful taxi and slept. We had to cover up for the monks again. The temple has a really cool story. It started as a wildlife preserve - they still have water buffalo, goats, deer, and a few other types of animals running around. About 15 years ago the police rescued 2 tiger cubs from poachers and asked the temple to take them. The police have continued to bring rescued tigers, and the tigers keep having babies. Today they have 102. They're all raised by humans, so they're very gentle with people. Plus the temple has so many that they only let the tourists see the nicest ones. When we were with the animals they were chained up (not in a sad way) but they probably would have just laid there even if they weren't. An employee would show you exactly where to sit and where you could pet the tiger, and another employee would take your picture. They're tiger trainers/photographers. 
 After a while it was time to bring the tigers to a different area, and we got to walk them on leashes!
 We took more pictures, then we had some free time. They have a big area for the tigers to play, and there were about 10 in there. My friends left to go take pictures with deer (who chooses a deer over a tiger?!) and I watched the tigers fight over a green rain boot. It was awesome. 
 At the end of the day we got to meet the babies. They were adorable 1 and 2 month olds. They don't really have claws yet and their teeth aren't very sharp, so they're basically little puppies. They have their own room and we spent about 45 minutes in there. 
 At the end we got to feed them with bottles.
 I was petting a little one and this guy said "look behind you!" There was a GIANT head looking at me from the next cage. This picture does not show how enormous it was. At first I was freaked out, but all day long I had wanted to put my head next to a tiger's head and nobody would let me (for obvious reasons I guess) so this was my chance :) 
 They let volunteers live there and take care of tigers for a few months for free. Maybe I'll end up in Thailand for a little bit after Korea :)

Day 5: Beach day. I called the receptionist to ask where the nearest beach was, and it did not go well. I said "We want to go to the beach tomorrow. Which one is closest?" and she said
"Spell it." and I said "I don't know the name of a beach, I'm asking you to tell me one." and she said "A...B....?" and I said "No. I'm not spelling anything. I want to go to the ocean. To go swimming." and there was silence on the other end. So Kyla googled it and we found one called Pattaya.
We sat and swam most of the day, and ignored the people trying to sell us stuff. Every 10 minutes somebody would come over with food or souvenirs. For the first hour we were nice, then we got less nice, and by the end we just closed our eyes and pretended to be asleep. After tanning for a while we explored. The first alley we went down was rated R, so we turned around and stayed on the main street. We found a starbucks and I got to have some iced coffee. It was a really nice, relaxing day. The ocean is my favorite place in the world, and I'm happy any time I get to go.

Day 6: This was the last day for Katie and I, and we were really low on cash. I had enough to get to the airport and eat one meal, so Kyla found some free stuff. We took the subway. 
We went to an arts and culture museum in the morning. They had a lot about the recent flood, and one of the princesses is a photographer so a bunch of her work was displayed. She spent the year traveling and it was interesting to see her pictures. In the afternoon we tried to find another museum and failed. We had dinner at our favorite street restaurant. 
 This was the kitchen. The food was so good and nobody got sick.

The next morning Katie and I left. I spent most of the day frustrated and angry. Let me summarize for you: NEVER fly Southern China Air. Both our flights were late, which meant we were running through airports and by the time we got to Korea we had missed everything. I talked to an employee and she found a bus terminal that had one more bus leaving that night. We got on the subway, and after about 20 min the subway just stopped. A nice man told us it was done running for the night, and we had to take a taxi the rest of the way. Most Korean taxi drivers are crazy and drive extremely fast. Of course, the night we were in a hurry, we had the slow guy. I even told him in Korean to hurry please and he just laughed at me. Rude. We got there with 10 minutes to spare, and I was finally in my apartment around 5 AM. It was not a very happy end to the trip, but it was an awesome vacation. I would love to go back to Thailand some day!

No comments:

Post a Comment