Nothing like popcorn and bananas to start the day off right.
We had to be at the older, smaller train station at seven – apparently a peak traffic time in the city. Our taxi driver conferred with our hotel receptionist, who tried to confer with us but once again there was some linguistic confusion. We were a little concerned but we made it to the train station with a few minutes to spare.
There is a market right next to the station, so we thought we’d do a super quick reconnaissance in search of breakfast food – which is how we ended up with a bunch of mini-bananas and a bag of the most delicious kettle corn I’ve ever had (and I am what you might call a kettle corn connoisseur). We grabbed a Coke and hopped on the train to Kanchanaburi. We also rounded out our morning meal with some slices of pomelo that a vendor who had hopped on the train for a few stops sold us. It was served with this sugar/salt mixture that was pink and tasty.
After an unceremonious four hour train ride on the Death Railway, we took a five minute songthaew ride to our hotel (which was unbelievably nice for $25/night!). After we got checked in, we arranged to visit the tiger monastery. This involved a change in clothes (apparently reds, pinks, oranges and bright colors bother the tigers) and a 60 or so km ride down an almost-highway in the back of another songthaew, which is basically two covered benches in the bed of a pickup.
“Do you think this will annoy any tigers?” was never a serious question I’ve had about any of my outfit choices before today.
We got down in the canyon on temple grounds. On one side of a fence there were about ten or so tigers, each with a handler-type person, a couple monks hanging out, and a ton of people in lines on the other side. You could pay extra to take a group photo, where you got to hold the biggest tiger’s head in your lap, but we opted for the individual photos included in admission costs. You go in the fence one by one and hand your camera to somebody, and they hold your hand and walk you from tiger to tiger, telling you when and how to pose. For some reason, I actually had two handlers – an older lady who had no interest in making small talk led me around while a disinterested young lady took my pictures and chatted with my hand holder in Thai.
Being that close to tigers was amazing. They are awesome, in the truest sense of the word. I was in awe of their size and power but also their laziness and indifference. Sooo, pretty much like the rest of the cats I’ve encountered. One of the workers told us that big cats have the same sleeping habits in the wild as house cats do at home – 16 to 20 hours a day spent napping. When I tried to pet one of the tigers, it must have thought I was a fly because it tried to shoo me with it’s tail. The same thing happened to my mom, and they just told her to pet the tigers more firmly. We both got done and I flipped through my pics as soon as I got out of the gate…
My photographer cut my face off in all but one of the thirty pics she took. Seriously.
Mom’s turned out much better.
I was disappointed, but still glad to have the memory of hanging out with some tigers. My mom suggested I ask if I could go again – the worst they could say is no. The line was huge and they were pulling the plug on the photo op soon, since it was almost play time. I told the worker I had an “it can’t hurts to ask question,” and showed him the pics. He got me right to the front of the line and let me go through the whole thing again, which was awesome.
I have mixed feelings about this experience. Because it was a monastery, I thought it would be more about the relationships between the tigers and the monks. It turned out to be little more than a tourist attraction that the monks used to earn money. We heard both that the tigers were drugged and were not, but their lethargic behavior made sense when they were compared to domesticated cats for us by an employee. I am going to go with sober tigers, just hanging out in the hottest part of the day. It was also a little sad to see them shackled to the ground. (Even though a tiny part of me was glad they were chained up when I was in there with them.) Honestly, it felt kind of like a photo-op to cross off a list but I will say I’ve never had the opportunity to get that close to tigers anywhere else – see what I mean? Mixed feelings.
That evening, we had the hotel call a taxi for us – which happened to be a moto-taxi! Basically a motorcycle with bench for a sidecar. Not for the faint-hearted.
He took us to check out the bridge on the river Kwai, where we also stopped for some coconut milk ice cream with ‘thai sweet’ on top. It looked like shredded cheese, but it was just sugar. The ice cream was awesome!
Next we hit the night market. We wandered around trying to make some supper decisions, but couldn’t make up our minds. One obstacle we face is that my mom can’t have gluten/wheat and there are really no universal hand motions for that sort of thing (yet!). Finally we saw some tables under an awning set up on the sidewalk with a sign boasting a buffet of 9.99 Thai Baht (about $3). There was all this uncooked food setting out, and people were loading up plates and taking them back to their table, where a waiter set up a hot pot type thing. It had a fire underneath, a hot water moat and a hot metal dome.
Our server motioned for us to throw our meat on the dome and add vegetables and other stuff to the water to make soup. I’m not even sure what we ate! It was a fun adventure, we were laughing and trying to guess what we were eating (and if it was thoroughly cooked!).
Although it turns out I liked the bacon the best.
Meredith R. Allen 