Thailand - The Land of Smiles

The Floating Market, Tiger Temple, and Bridge over the River Kwai

We had both read and heard about the The Tiger Temple (real name Wat Pa Luangta Bua Yannasampannoin) Kanchanaburi (about two hours out of Bangkok) and it was something that we both really wanted to do. In fact, if there was one thing I wanted to do in Thailand, (other than sit on a beach) it was to visit this incredible animal sanctuary.

We bought a day trip package from a travel agent near Khao San Road for 600 baht each. A pretty good deal considering the rip-off artist the night before tried to sell the same thing to us for 1700! The trip was going to take us to the floating market, the bridge over the River Kwai (known as the Death Bridge), and the Tiger Temple.

We got picked up from our hotel at around 8:30 and boarded a mini bus with eight other tourists. Some of the them were on half day tours to the floating market only, but there were 60 of us in all, (ten mini vans) with only one tour guide.

After a two hour drive into the countryside we arrived at a dock where we boarded a longtail boat for a twenty minute drive around the canals. When we got off we were at the market. Which is basically a long canal where longtail boats park and sell their wares to the tourists passing in other boats. There was a major traffic jam while we were there, but we eventually made it from one end to the other and back again.

Longtail boats in a row. Doesn't the water look clean?!

Life on the canals...

One end of the market.

Traffic jam - watch out for "boat rage"!!! (Imagine having to go through this to get to the corner store!)

The most interesting part was the local people. So many interesting faces everywhere we couldn't shoot fast enough, but managed to take a ton of photos anyway. Ranya bought some spices for herself and to give as gifts, I didn't actually buy anything because it all seemed so touristy and didn't see anything that I really wanted.

A fruit vendor.

A vendor.

Not happy about the traffic!

Bags and miscellaneous junk for sale...

Meat anyone?

We got off our boat and still had about 45 minutes to kill so we wandered around the part of the market that was on ground. We bought some fresh mango and a bunch of these little fruits whose name we still don't know, but that were delicious.

Mysterious fruit... anyone know what these are?

After waiting around for some direction we got into a different mini van (some people were headed back to Bangkok and some were headed to lunch and the rest of the tour. After a few minutes on the road we all had to stop (I think to pick up some people who went to the snake farm) and shortly after that it came to the attention of the tour guide that we were missing two people! They had apparently gotten on the bus to Bangkok by mistake.

After a kerfuffle (sp?) by the side of the road we were on our way again. We were sitting in the front seat of the van and I remember the exact moment that our van went in the opposite direction as all the others. I pointed at the other vans, but the Thai drive chose to ignore me. I figured he must know what he was doing - maybe in a perfect world. We spent the next two hours lost in the middle of nowhere trying to find the lunch restaurant.

At lunch the driver started saying that we might have to skip the Tiger Temple. Ranya and I were livid. We managed to convince the others in our van to skip the bridge over the river Kwai instead. So we were finally headed to the temple at around 2:30 PM - nearly an hour and a half later than we were meant to be.

The tigers are only available to the public for a few hours a day - mid-afternoon, when it's like the middle of the night for them since they are nocturnal - and we started to worry that we would miss them. thankfully, for us AND the tour agency, this did not happen. We got to the temple at exactly the right time actually because shortly after we arrived a huge group of other tourist arrived and then it started to rain.

Entering Tiger Canyon.

In awe...

Still in awe...

And, yes... still... in awe...

Okay, now it's amazement! I was petting him right on the belly - the biggest tiger there!

Ranya had her share of awe (and a better photographer)...

Someone's getting antsy...

One of the reasons you have to sign a disclaimer when you enter... look at those teeth!

Just a big kitty...

It was one of the most incredible experience I've had in my entire life. They are huge animals. They are majestic and beautiful. They are like giant kittens that could rip out your throat in a second. Don't get me wrong, it's not like you're standing there just petting a tiger. There are volunteers that guide you around the area - they hold your hand, place you next to the tiger ant then take your picture for you with your own camera.

The abbot of the monastery, Phra Acharn Phusit, is also there at all times. He is the man behind it all. In 1999, he took in a tiger cub whose mother had been killed by poachers. That cub died a few weeks after his arrival. The abbot was devastated. Then something miraculous happened, another two cubs just showed up one day, and the rest as they say, is history. People started bringing more injured and abandoned tigers to the temple and now the tigers outnumber the monks.

The abbot to the rescue... it's time to behave now! (He didn't hit him, just let him have a sniff of his hand.)

"Yes! You're a cutie, yes you are... who's the cutie?" Doing that would be even more incredible...

It was amazing to see the way that the abbot played with his "children". they would get grumply with him, and a few swatted at him but with no real intention. I wonder what would happen if I walked up to one of them and smacked them on the nose! After spending about 30-40 minutes filling up on pictures, we started the walk back to the front entrance. The grounds of the temple are home to many other kinds of animals - goats, boars, water buffalo, peacocks... that have been injured or abandoned in some way. So, we spent some time wandering around tkaing picture of those and then it was time for us to head back to the tour. We still had the river Kwai to get to - it was the drivers idea to take us there after the tigers.

Water buffalo.

Boars

The ugliest, funniest looking goat on the face of the planet! He followed us to the front entrance... he took a real liking to Ranya!

Back in the mini van, we were all in awe of what we had just experienced. It really is impossible to describe the way you feel when you are sitting next to a wild animal like a tiger. I hope the pictures (and the expression on my face) helps a little.

(Sorry this post is so long... it was a long day... I should probably have split this one up into three... but it's done now... so deal. If you don't want to read it all, then just look at the pictures.)

The bridge

Artsy shot of the bridge before it started really raining...

We arrived at the bridge in late afternoon. It was built by war prisoners and forced labourers of the Japanese during World War II. Around 70,000 of these died during the building of the "Death Railway" and the bridge. The railway was meant to link Thailand to Burma where the Japanese were fighting the British. It was to be used to transport men and supplies. It was made famous by a 1957 movie that depicted a soldier swimming up the river and blowing up the bridge to stop the Japanese from succeeding. The movie is fiction, but the bridge is real and was bombed by allied forces. The most striking part is that so many PoW's and labourers died during its construction. You can actually take a train over the bridge now, but we didn't have time, or , to be honest, the desire. As soon as we got there it started to rain like nothing I've ever seen (aside, maybe, from the typhoon that hit Korea last year!)

You can actually see the rain... it abated after about 10 minutes.

It took forever to get back to the hotel on Khao San road and we were exhausted after hours on the mini bus and the drama of being lost and maybe not seeing the tigers. We made an early night of it, since we had to be up at 6 AM to get to the airport for our flight to Surat Thani in the middle of the country... Coming up: Koh Samui where we spent five days hanging around on the beach, riding elephants, and more... so stay tuned!

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On a side note - back to reality - i have only 9 days left in Korea. woohoo! and today is my birthday...my 30th birthday to be precise. I'm still not sure how I feel about this, but I'm sure I'll have lots to say on the subject after my party this weekend!