Monday, January 3, 2011

Tiger Kingdom Chiang Mai

We headed out to the Tiger Kingdom today, being an animal lover I wasn't sure what type of place this was going to be, but from what I saw these were well looked after animals, the keeper would give them an light bang of a stick but nothing that I wouldn't do to my own animals to keep them in line! They seem content anyway.

We decided to go with the Biggest and smallest so 22months & 1-3 months old, it is an experience I will never forget. You will never get this close to these majestic beasts.

We nearly didn't get into the big pen as there was a big waiting list but someone didn't show up so we got in no problem, and too be honest I would have queued all day. We had changed to the medium one. Some American guys showing true intellect asked could they change to a smaller LION when they heard the queue was too long...priceless!

The guy told me to lie down firm on the tiger with my head! I didn't know how the tiger was going to take it..but one things for sure like any pet they love a nice belly rub.

The small tigers were adorable, one of them wasn't bothered by us and was more interested in 'attacking' one of his piers. We got to hold one of the smaller one's..it really was a once in a lifetime experience.

I know it would be nice if they weren't in captivity, etc, etc but there's only several hundred tigers left in the wild in SE Asia and about 5,000 in the world...sometimes nature is more cruel. Anything that can keep the tiger from becoming extinct is not necessarily a bad thing.

After the Tiger Kingdom, there's a lot of tourist junk down this little road, the tuktuk driver asked do we want to go to Snake Farm, Monkey School, etc. We declined on those and headed for an Orchid Farm, they flowers were beautiful here but only worth seeing if your in the area.

We retired for the night and out of curiosity I looked up the Monkey School on Tripadvisor and was shocked at what I saw..Monkeys on chains and riding bikes and playing baseball. If you love animals maybe give this place a miss.

We've booked our Elephant Nature Park for Wednesday so it's animal overload. We picked an ethical conservation place, it's 3 times as much as the Elephant "prisons" but we're not interested in seeing an animal do cruel tricks.

We noticed a sign on the way back to the hotel 'Beware of the fierce dog' seems ironic considering we were in pens with fierce predators.


















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