We made the unfortunate decision to book a tour there, which was the one downer in an otherwise awesome day. The reason we did this is that when one searches for "tiger temple thailand," the first result on google is actually the tour company, with the
implication that one can't really get there on one's own. In retrospect, we could've jut hired a car and driver for less, but there we are.We started the day in a huge, ugly (but admittedly comfortable) van and headed first for the floating market, about an hour outside Bangkok. It's a rather touristy, but still fun market where you get on a boat and a guy takes you around all these canals, with vendors set up on barges on either side. Some sections were super crowded, leading to essentially bumper boats. There were lots of souvenirs, clothes, random art, spices...pretty much anything you'd expect in a market, but on water. There were also food vendors, floating around in boats of their own. We hadn't done any souvenir shopping up to this point, so we got a few things, ate some sticky rice with mango, and headed back to our driver.
We then had a two hour drive to pick up our guide before going to the Tiger Temple (the guide was on the way, it was just far from Bangkok), and that was when things got annoying for a bit. The guide called us (through our driver) to ask if we wanted to feed tiger cubs. Well, of course we did, I told him...that's what the tour description promised. He then told us it would be 1500 Baht each (about $50), on top of what we already paid. No, I told him, the website said it was included. He hemmed and hawed, called a manager, called us back to say the manager said no, called another manager at my insistence, and that manager called back to talk to me. And oh, my. I don't think I've had a worse customer service experience before. He was rude and pushy, accused me of being "malicious" and "American" (I almost said, "well, I can tell you're European, your customer service is crap" but refrained), kept yelling at me, and was just horrible. I just kept telling him to stop raising his voice and let me talk, and finally, after a long while of this, he agreed to give us a "discount" of 500 Baht each. We agreed, because we really did want to feed the cubs. Later, when we got to the temple, we found out that that's actually the price, and he was just gonna pocket that extra 500 Baht each for doing exactly nothing, since the guide and driver costs were included in the original price. Ugh. Conclusion: if you're in Thailand, never ever go with these guys. "Thailand Tours Center" or "Tiger Temple Tha
iland" (Tourism Authority of Thailand license number 13/01632) is horrible, and we plan to report them to the TAT.But anyways, on to the good stuff. We picked up our guide (who, frankly, was useless. Friendly, but useless), stopped at the War Cemetery for POWs of the Allied Countries (which was pretty and depressing and not really that exciting), had lunch, and then got to the best part, the tigers! The temple is huge and has other animals on the grounds (deer, hogs, other random things), but of course, they were less exciting that the giant cats. We had some time to go 'till our cub feeding, so we hung out and even got to walk one of the big tigers! We also petted a 5-month old cub (that was one of the photos in the last post) and then finally g
ot to go to the very little 4-week old tiger kittens!Our group was led inside by a volunteer (the temple is staffed by them along with the monks, they come from all over the world or month-long periods to work with the tigers) and we were allowed to walk around the enclosure and pet, hold, and play with the cubs for a while befo
re feeding them. The cubs were cutest things ever! They're brothers and don't yet have names (the volunteer said the names were already selected, but it wasn't yet decided which tiger would get which name), so they were referred to as "blue," "green," or "red," by the collar of their collars. They were tiny and awkward, with paws too big for their bodies, so they were fairly unsteady on their feet. They mostly wobbled around or crawled, or plopped in corner, kitten-like, or rolled around on the ground. We 
all spent a lot of time ooh-ing and aww-ing at them, as you might imagine. So adorable! Eventually, it was time for the actual feeding, so Mu and I got a bottle of milk and a cub to feed. The cub we got had been really sleepy right before, but he woke right up when there was milk! He was kind of ridiculous, and in his excitement to eat, ended up not actually ingesting a lot of the milk but spilling it all over the place. How like a baby! We both ended up covered with drops of milk, but that's ok, we're doing laundry today.Of course, after eating, the baby pretty much conked out and we were able to get a few more really cute pictures with him before moving on. All this makes me remember how much I wanted a pet tiger. :)
After the babies, the adults were somehow less exciting, but still pretty cool. We walked to the tiger canyon, where there were about 10 big tigers hanging out. There were lots of guides and they walked you around and took pictures of you with various tigers. For some reason, you had to pay if you wanted a group photo, but individual ones were free, so that's what we did.
As we started heading back to the van, I told Mu that feeding tigers beat out feeding hippos. He asked if it beat them out per Baht spent, so of course, we had to calculate this. It cost 10 Baht for hippos and 1000 Baht for tigers, and tigers are not really two orders of magnitude better. BUT, we spent 3 minutes with hippos and 30 minutes with tigers, so that's a whole order of magnitude right there. Are tigers 10 times better than hippos? I think it's pretty close. So, we decided that, on a per-Baht level, they were about even. Yes, we are dorks. :)
We drove on to our next animal adventure, an e
lephant ride. I wasn't sure how exciting it would be, since I've been on an elephant at an amusement park, but it turned out to be great! It was a fairly long ride, and I got to ride on the elephant's head for part of it! That was a little scary and wobbly, but so much fun! Our elephant was named Kelta.After the ride, we went to visit the bridge on the River Kwai, which wasn't that exciting, and then had a 3 hour drive back to Bangkok. Ooof. We did find a very tasty veggie place right near our guest house, though! Today, we meander about Bangkok some more, and tomorrow, we fly to Kolkatta!
Also, because I've been forgetting to say so, happy holidays!
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