Every Catlover's Dream

I'd heard about the monks and tigers. I've always said I wished I could tame a tiger to have a pet. Well, some monks did and I got to pet them!

So I am actually having a nice time in Bangkok, it just took some strategy as far as how I do things. After Lauren left I met this really nice Canadian girl who is travelling with her boyfriend. They just spent 2 months in India and are really happy to be in Thailand. I couldn't believe it, India was the first foreign country her boyfriend had been to! To me, India is for super seasoned travellers...a step just below Africa. So anyway, I've ended up hanging out with them every night and it's been really nice. They are my age and kind of in the same place in life as Alex and I...as in, I could actually be friends with them in real life. They renovate houses and are traveling for 5 months while waiting for a house they just bought to be ready. They live on an island just off Vancouver Island...sounds really beautiful...we'll have to visit when we move to Portland.

So anyway, on Wednesday I figured out how to get around Bangkok without inhaling tons of exhaust or sitting in a taxi for 2 hours. There is a taxi boat i can take from here to get to the sky train. It was great! I felt like a local getting around, jsut like in Chiang Mai, city livin! I checked out Sukhimvit 55, a fantastic street with some ultra modern interior shops that Alex is gonna geek out over...i was geeking out! The bonus is they are all on the same street...i can't wait to take him there. It might even be possible to get a couple light fixures cause they fold up into a box that you could carry on the plane. My favorite shop is www.lamptitude.com or .net but their web site is down right now. It's soooo cool!

So yesterday I had to get up at 6am for my tour. I only really cared about seeing the Tiger Temple, but had to go on a big tour to see it. It began at a really contrived floating market, it was so ridiculously touristy...not a local buying a thing in sight. I was really glad Lauren and I went to some in Vietnam that were so authentic. The only thing that was really great was my excellent noodle soup for breakfast and that I got to try Mangostein. I've heard it's the best fruit in the world but it went out of season as soon as we got here. Somehow they had them at the floating market, guess they're back in season. They are soooo good, I bought extra so Alex can try. Then we went to a really lame WW2 museum...snoooze...museums in Asia really are lacking. I haven't been impressed by a single one. Lesson learned, stick to the temples....very impressive.

But it all came together when we got the the tiger temple. My heart jumped when I saw all the tigers in this open canyon area. They were behind a rope and there are volunteers who take people in one by one to come and pet them. They are very tame and just kinda slept or layed there the whole time. So I got to go in and a volunteer would hold my hand as I walked up to the tigers. Then, another volunteer would take my picture as I pet them...they were soooo cute!

They also had some tiger cubs and leapard cubs in cages and a black bear too! It was really great, totally worth the 3 hour car ride back!