Grrrrr.

I’ve discovered the joys of chicken sticks, sticky rice, and baby tigers. We came to Kanchanaburi for a few days before heading back to Bangkok to meet Matt’s parents. While the WWII museums have been interesting, my highlight was playing with baby tigers. I opted to not take pictures with the big ones because they wouldn’t let Matt and I go in together, was hot from standing in line, and frustrated from a few things, one of whom was a fat and hairy tourist who refused to be a civilized person and wait in line. (It wasn’t like India where the way is do what you can to get served because there is no line. There was obviously a line.) After Matt was done with the big cats, we decided to walk around the compound instead of waiting in the parking lot for our truck to leave. This was a great decision. We saw a couple staff helping visitors hold baby tigers. We walked up, just to watch, but then got offered a cub.

It filled my arms; being a tiger, the size of the cub was more like a puppy than a cat. It was so much fun to look into their sweet little faces, more curious than ferocious. After taking turns holding the cubs, we were ushered to an enclosed area since the big tigers were being brought up the hill to their normal cages. This meant we had 20 wonderful minutes to play with the cubs. There were only about 15 other visitors in their with us. We sat in a circle on the ground and let the tigers walk around. One climbed into my lap, followed by his brother.

(it’s a little blurry because it was dusk and we couldn’t use the flash and they kept moving)

Luckily for me, they seemed to like it there and stayed for a while. One took a liking, er licking, to Matt’s knee. A lady commented on how he must be an animal lover, “They [the animals] can just sense these things.” For those of you who know Matt, you know what an animal lover he is…

The cub finds Matt’s knee…

mmm…salty!

After the big tigers were back in their cages, it was feeding time for the other animals. Bunches of bananas and veggies were strewn about the path, and heard of boars, buffalos, and other funny creatures came stampeding from around the compound to get a bite to eat.

It was a little tricky walking back out to the parking lot, but luckily we made it ok. I don’t really know how ethical/realistic the whole place is, particularly with the tigers. I mean, with so much human contact since birth, I don’t see how any of the tigers could be released back into the wild. There is no “back,” they were raised in captivity and allowed to play with tourists for goodness sakes. The admission fees are supposedly going to fund building of better tiger facilities though, so we’ll see what happens in the future. Any animal activists out there have any thoughts on this?

And no one says anything about the boars. What about releasing them back to the wild? (The story on the boars is that the monks cared for an injured boar, and after it was released it returned a few days later…with its whole family! They must like getting all those bananas. It’s got to be hard for a boar to get bananas in the wild.) I mean, when I get food I like, its hard for me to go back to the wild too…I mean back on the road. You see, the other wonderful thing we’ve been enjoying for the last few days are these flavorful bbq chicken sticks from a stall the rolls up right outside our soi in front of 7-11. I’ve seen similar stalls in Bangkok and all, but I never really thought they looked too appetizing before. Until I got a whiff of un-polluted bbq aroma. We bought a bag our first day here, and each day after (except for one day when she ran out before we got there…)

Feasting on our favorites: bbq chicken, sticky rice, beer, REALLY yummy crunchy wafer cookies, and deliciously juicy oranges. I think I had a coke too. Thank goodness for 7-11 and street food.