First on the list was an elephant camp. You start out by getting to feed bananas/sugar cane to elephants by hand. You can pay a dollar to have the elephant pick you up by it's trunk – pretty amazing how strong they are. Then you go over for a show where they have the elephants doing all kinds of stuff like kicking soccer balls, dancing, demonstrating how they are used to haul logs, and even painting. Yes, somehow they have trained elephants to hold a paintbrush and paint flowers, trees, and of course elephants. After the show, we climbed on onto a saddle for a ride through the jungle. Very lumpy but fun. Our guide was hilarious and had fun practicing his English with us. His best phrases were "Oh my God," "Oh my Buddha," and "Mamma Mia!" We jumped off the elephant and did a little shopping for hill tribe handicrafts before getting in an ox cart to ride back to the main complex. After a huge lunch buffet, we got on a bamboo raft to float down the river to the end of the tour (same river as the white water rafting, but further down stream). It was very peaceful to be polled along and enjoy the scenery.
Preecha met us at the end and whisked us away to the next attraction, a snake farm/show. The farm was pretty interesting, with tons of different snakes and other random animals (birds, mongoose, etc), but the best part was the show. When we sat down, they cranked the intro part of "the final countdown" (song from Rock IV) and paraded out several ominous looking burlap sacks. Then came the announcing, which was done by a hilarious Thai guy with a great deadpan sense on humor. He would simply turn down the music (which was a continuous loop of the intro to the final countdown) for a second, throw in a word or two, then crank it back up. While we was doing this, three other Thai men were throwing out various poisonous snakes, including kind cobras, and basically harassing them and trying to avoid being bitten. They also got the audience involved and scared the crap out us every once in a while.
Next we went to the "monkey center," where they had a whole bunch of macaques on display and a show. This was definitely one of the most depressing animal exhibits I've seen. The monkeys were in tiny cages of chained up in a small yard, and the show was totally demeaning, and included having them do tricks, sell tourists items, and even ride a tricycle in circles. During the show they picked me from the audience to test my memory ability against one of the macaques. As you might guess, the monkey won.
The final stop, tiger kingdom, was considerably better. This is a tiger breeding program, which is sanctioned by the Thai government, and has a range of tigers for viewing from a few months old to adults. The best part is that you can actually go interact with them. First, Nikki and I went in with three adults, and were allowed to pet/scratch them, as long as we didn't touch their front paws or head (no problem!). They even had us lay down on the tigers. It was just a tab bit terrifying, but also amazing to feel the raw power of their muscles under their velvety coats. As if that wasn't enough, we followed that up with a snuggle session with baby tigers, who were just a couple months old. They were definitely like big kittens (with big claws) and were totally friendly, climbing all over us and cuddling up for a good belly scratch. We talked with one of the trainers afterwards who told us that we switched from being a journalist to working in tiger conservation, after being inspired by Steve Irwin. For some reason, I found that really touching!
When we got back home, Nikki and I were starting to feel the effects of a week of late nights/early mornings. We lay low for the night, ordering food in and catching up on some much needed rest.
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