Tigers, Temples & Transvestites–Bangkok & Chaing Mai, Thailand

Due to new Thai visa laws, instead of travelling overland from Siem Reap into Bangkok, we had to about turn to Phnom Penh and catch a budget airline flight into Bangkok, all so we can get a 30 day visa on entry (on 14 days are permitted if entering via land). A bit of a pain in the backside and an additional day of travelling, but Heather is already running out of blank pages in her passport, so the small stamp in lieu of a full page visa is welcome.

For some curious reason, we decided to stay in the Bangkok backpackers ghetto of Khao San Road, which, unless you have been there, is a difficult place to describe but I will try my best. It’s basically as untraditionally Thai as you can get, a long road full of hotels, bars blaring house music, cheap (and nasty) restaurants and market stalls selling everything from t-shirts to fake dreadlocks. The clientele are mainly European / Australasian, late teen / early twenty somethings determined to get as drunk as humanly possible, as quickly as physically possible. I have no idea why we decided to stay there, but lucked out with our room in a recently refurbished hotel, that was as nice as many more expensive hotels we have stayed in our previous life, when we could afford such luxuries!

First day in Bangkok and we’re on the sightseeing trail once again! We walk to the Grand Palace the former home / private temple of the Thai royal family. By the standards of some of the monuments we had seen on our travels, the Grand Palace is relatively new (1782). At the centre of the complex, is the Royal Monastery (although no monks actually live there) and is home to the emerald Buddha, a foot high Buddha carved out of a single piece of jade. This is one of the most venerated sites in Thailand, where the people convene to pay respect to the Lord Buddha and his teachings. The monastery itself is brightly decorated in bright gold mosaics, with intricate carvings and its interior is even more impressive, with murals covering the walls and the central alter containing the emerald Buddha covered in gold and satin drapes.

Entrance to the Royal Monastery

Decoration of the Royal Monastery

From the Royal Monastery, we wandered under ever darkening skies to the upper terrace and its four main monuments; a golden stupa, the Mondop (a repository for Buddhist sacred scriptures), a miniature Angkor Wat statue (not that impressive as we’d been at the real thing a few days previous) and the Royal Pathenon, containing statues of past Thai sovereigns. Again, similar to the Royal Monastery, the level of detail and extravagance of the decoration of these buildings is spectacular. The dark skies that threatened rain finally decided to deluge us (and the rest of Bangkok presumably) with torrential rain for a good 45 minutes, so we took shelter and waited for the storm to pass.

Threatening skies over the Upper Terrace

The rain ceased, but the sun hid stubbornly behind the dark clouds, so we took the short walk to Wat Po, home of the reclining Buddha. Wat Po is one of the oldest and largest Buddhist temples in Bangkok and contains over 1,000 images of Buddha. Even though I’d already seen the giant reclining Buddha before, the size of this sculpture is still impressive, although for some reason, Heather was completely fascinated with the size of the Buddha’s feet (which for the record are intricately decorated).

Part of the large Wat Po Temple

The Reclining Buddha

Buddha feet

Next day in Bangkok, I’m still suffering from a stomach bug that’s been getting the better of me since we were in Phnom Penh a week previous, so we spent our final day in Bangkok watching pirate copy movies on the big flat screen T.V.

Early next morning, we’re at the train station, ready for our 12 hour train ride to Chiang Mai. We chose the day time train as we wanted to see the beautiful Thai countryside, what a mistake that turned out to be! At the station we met a friendly Irish fella in his early sixties, who is now a resident of Thailand (or maybe Laos or Vietnam, he wasn’t very clear) along with his Thai wife, a good 30 years his junior. He proceeded to tell us all about the land and houses he owned in various parts of the world and that he hadn’t been back home to Ireland in at least 20 years, although I pointed out it was probably for the best as Ireland in now bankrupt!

The train journey itself was laborious, I find it hard enough to entertain myself for 12 minutes, let alone 12 hours and the minutes dragged by as I tried to keep myself occupied (whilst not bothering Heather who was buried in some soppy romance novel for the whole journey). About 6 hours in, despite being labelled an ‘express train’ we stopped at station number 47 (or so it seemed) to collect more passengers. It was at this stage a 6ft 1 tall “ladyboy” joined our carriage, wearing a skirt that barely covered his (?) testicles, and for the next 2 hours, used the carriage as it’s own private catwalk, much to Heather and my amusement. At around 6pm, as the sun set, Heather’s favourite insect, the cockroach, made a guest appearance in our carriage (hundreds of the mini ones) so the last couple of hours were spent squishing them with my flip flop!

Start of the 12 hour journey (and before attack of the cockroach)

Finally at Chiang Mai station, the Irish fella we had met earlier told us to follow him as he knew where our guest house was, and we shared a longtail taxi (seats in the back of a pickup truck) which due to the lovely Thai lady on negotiation duty, only cost us around 50p for a 10 minute ride.

Chiang Mai is the polar opposite to Bangkok, it’s streets are almost serene, there are occasion shouts of tuk-tuk, but you’re never hassled, it’s a very laid back, almost hippy vibe. The city itself is surrounded by a medieval wall and moat, within which are numerous Buddhist temples and we spend the day exploring them, the most impressive being Wat Chiang Man and Wat Chedi Luang

Wat Chiang Man

Wat Chedi Luang

Despite being on an amazing adventure, the daily changes of sleeping arrangements, diet and temperature along with being constantly moving from place to place are extremely tiring both mentally and physically and can really get to you. Unfortunately the very next day, it was Heather’s turn to be ill, so we spent the day holed up in the air conditioning.

The next morning, a much happier, healthy Heather and I, headed off to Tiger Kingdom. Tiger Kingdom is like a zoo, but really only has tigers as inhabitants, the difference being that here you can actually get into the cages with them! The tigers are split into 4 groups, smallest (between 3-6 months), small (6 months to a year), medium (around 18 months) and big (about 2 years old), there are packages available to go into all cages, but being on a budget, we chose the babies and the “medium” size cats and headed off to their cage.

Both Heather and I are huge animal lovers and Heather had researched this place well (mainly due to our Shanghai Zoo encounter) as we were concerned at how this kind of attraction may be run, but any fears were quickly allayed when we arrived at the first area housing the smallest tigers. We were made to read a long list of what is and isn’t allowed, wash our hands and wait our turn, as only a couple of people are allowed in at a time. When our time came around (all 10 minutes of it), we were led over to a very sleepy 5 month old tiger cub, who loved having her tummy rubbed as she dozed. I was surprised that her fur, that looked very soft, was actually very course. We were then invited cross a small divide to the smallest of the tiger cubs, a completely adorable 3 month old male cub, who was again sound asleep. As we again went all ga-ga over this little tiger, we were asked if we would like to help bottle feed them (silly question), so we each got a chance to feed this amazing animal. All to soon our time with the tiger cubs was over and we headed off to the “medium” sized cats.

Sleepy Tiger / Happy Heather

Amazing experience

The very first thing we noticed about the “medium” sized tigers, is that they are in fact, f**king enormous!! They are pretty much fully grown in height, they just haven’t filled out yet, so as we stand outside the enclosure waiting to go in, all sorts of “big cat mauls tourist” headlines start flitting through my mind! We are escorted in by 3 keepers, all reassuringly armed with…. small sticks! There are two cats in the enclosure, one is lying down by the perimeter fence, the other is laying in the grass, neither of them very asleep, the keeper tells Heather to kneel at the back of the tiger and to tickle its back, which she does with much trepidation and the merest of contact. The keeper says “she can’t feel that, do it like this” and proceeds to almost thump the tiger on his hind quarter! As Heather is making friends, the other tiger in the enclosure decides to come and investigate, but the keepers are quick to divert her attention elsewhere. We again spend some time stroking the huge tiger, taking note of just how big her paws are, which in turn are attached to some pretty sizable legs.  We move over to the more inquisitive tiger, who is now perched on a log and is coaxed into posing for pictures with us by way of lumps of raw chicken, every time she finishes one piece, she made a kind of rumbling growling sound until she was given more.

My.. what big teeth you have!

Heather suspicions that we are being followed are confirmed….

The Tiger Kingdom is an experience that neither of us will ever forget. Being this close to one of natures most powerful creatures, really is a very humbling (and also nerve-racking) experience. We have subsequently been asked if the tigers here are drugged. The large cats we were lucky enough to get to interact with, certainly were not and as tigers are naturally nocturnal creatures that spend around 18 hours a day sleeping, along with the level of commitment and care shown by the keepers, my honest opinion is that they are not.

Next stop Koh Tao!

- Mark “Tiger” Cleverly`