#81 Bangkok, Thailand

May 11

Ever-faithful jet lag ensured I was up and ready way before our departure this morning. Art, our new Thai friend (friend of a friend) kindly arranged an awesome excursion to the Tiger Temple, a complex three hours south of Bangkok. The long ride gave us ample time to play the "people you might know" game (shout out to our common BYU-H friends) while basking in the air conditioned goodness of the van, serenaded by Adele, The Lumineers, and even my girl T-Swift.

When we got to the complex (in our not-too-bright-or-the-tiger-may-attack-you clothing), we excitedly got our tickets and made our way inside.

So here's the 411 on this place--it was founded by a Buddhist monk for the refuge of tigers who are neglected/abused or abandoned pets. It is now a reserve for over 100 tigers. It runs purely on donations and volunteers. Not only do the monks care for the tigers, but regular people can volunteer for a one-month period (min) or longer. Buddhists believe in preservation of life but also letting life take its course so they care for the animals but they don't sedate or medicate the tigers. The tigers we saw (a select ten or so) had been raised with so much human interaction that they were ok being around people as long as people didn't act stupid.

So to be honest, like most everything here, this experience was surreal. I mean, I played with tigers today--real, gorgeous, magnificent tigers.

That said, every part of the day felt like one of those how-I-see-me/how-others-see-me memes.

Examples:

A) Walking a tiger

See mom, you CAN walk a cat!

B) Photo shoot with tiger

So for one photo, my Thai guide/photographer told me to pick up the tiger's tail. I was like "You want me to what?" He repeated his request. I was like "The tail...this here [pointing]...pick THIS up?" He said something in Thai that could be loosely translated as "FML" and started snapping away. Obviously we can see the point of the photo is to both show off my tail-mic karaoke skills and also prove that I can indeed give a tiger a prostate exam.

C) Playing with tiger cubs

D) Feeding tiger

E) Washing tiger

I don't know if you've noticed but there is a lot of tiger hiny-washing and touching going on. A couple of reasons for this. First and foremost, a tiger will rip your head off if you touch his. Second, the tailbone is the trickiest place for a tiger to reach adequately, thus we provide the greatest service by cleaning/scratching/petting said area.
...I may have made the last part up but it sounded legit.

Here's some other fun shots of the reserve.

We followed it up by delicious food at a gorgeous restaurant...:)

PS I don't know how people learn to speak Asian languages with any kind of fluency. I learned "thank you" and "hello/good-bye" about 10 times today and still struggling!

PPS lots of gratitude that it didn't rain

PPSS a HUGE thank you to Art who spent his whole Saturday hanging out with us and watching out for us. What a guy!

May 12

We went to Wat Pho today, aka the Reclining Buddha. I guess people covered this Buddha with mud to hide and protect it from enemies but then it lay forgotten for years before being rediscovered.

I don't know why but in my mind, I pictured a Buddha sitting with his legs traditionally crossed but tilted on his back. Like Buddha was doing crunches or something haha.

When we entered the building housing the statue, I was taken aback by the presence of the statue. It is ENORMOUS! And very lovely. And to clarify, he is reclining on his side:) The feet even had designs inlaid with mother of pearl.

The rest of the Wat Pho complex was also very impressive. The detail of it all blows me away!

From there we made our way on the river ferry to the weekend market.

For the last leg to the market, we convinced a driver to cram all 5 of us in a single tuk-tuk. There was a general consensus that our mom's would probably kill us for such recklessness...love you Mom! Happy Mother's Day! :D

The weekend market reminded me a lot of the Old City in Jerusalem--lots of vendors, bright colors, interesting smells, genie pants, and lots of good people watching.

We took the sky rail back to our hostel. Luckily the lady there was very kind and let us come back to shower even though we were not staying there that night. Then we crammed again (this time into a legit taxi) and made our way to the train station. After a tasty noodle dinner, we boarded the train and settled into our beds.

Ok so if you weren't fortunate enough to witness my last train experience, you've probably heard about it. I'm a recovering germaphobe, and the overnight train in Egypt just about did me in. I'm really quite embarrassed--except it WAS THAT awful. You'll be pleased to know that the overnight train experience in Thailand was a vast improvement. I used the potty without crying and everything.

Now it's off to sleep. Good night Bangkok, good morning Chiang Mai!