Day 2 - Touring SouthEast - Tiger Tiger Shining bright, In the forests of the night..

Prologue: After the previous day's journey & frantic shopping spree, I'm blessed with 5 hours of sleep & a growling stomach. I wake up to smell some complimentary breakfast! =)

There's only one way of opening your sleep-drunk eyes & getting outta bed, by getting out of bed. (You expected a smarter answer, I'm a hibernator, what do I know!) I ate copiously for breakfast, not knowing when & what the next meal was going to be. I stuffed myself gloaty with a pancake, waffle, crossaint, salads, curd, and fruits. Yeah, I'm part junkie-part healthy, that's what I call a balanced diet. There was a new fruit to treat my taste buds, Dragon Fruit, nothing red or fiery about it though; it's flesh is white with embedded black beads, duuude it was sweeeet (read: Dude, where's my car). It was good I packed myself with glucose & fat, the next meal we had was 11 hours later.

We hopped in a taxi, and asked the guy what the most exciting place to be at was. After changing our minds atleast 4 times, we were headed to the Floating Market. Yup, the place is called so, 'coz you have access to little shafts of wooden markets floating in water, while you're wrooming on your speed boat, James Bond style. Until you get stuck in a boat-jam. With narrow-alleys allowing a maximum of 2-3 boats at a time, it's common when multiple boats with multiple people get stuck. You stare at them, they stare at you. That's okay. It's when they take pictures of you, you've nothing to do but sheepishly smile back. Kodak! Rewinding back before I stepped into this boat, I was stuck in the fare bargain. The teller qouted a price of 4100 Bahts for 4 of us, and 5 minutes of haranguing and nearly taking off in our taxi, she (the teller) reduced the rate to 1100 Bahts. 70% less Sale. My husband & his cousin couldn't stop grinning. Whilst I was melting in the heat, the only thing that mattered to me, was to be able to park my derriere. I smiled, for a different reason.

Next stop was a wooden handcraft store. What's the big deal we thought, a mili-second changed our minds. We saw loads of 2D carvings of Buddha; & jungle themes with wild animals & loads of trees, detailed up to leaf veins. And then there were the 3D carvings. Behind these carved out trees & their hanging roots, were more trees or climbing monkeys, like a detailed layer peeping through the delicately designed front layer, all crafted on the same thick wooden canvas. I bought a set of 3 prettily painted & twisty-carved candle stands. Romance & aesthetics, a neat package.

Our little taxi now trotted it's way to the Tiger Temple. It's a Buddhist sanctuary, where the monks & their volunteers train their freely-roaming tigers to interact with humans without biting their meaty heads off (or any other sumptous body part). On entering, we decided to opt for group vs just solo pictures, whose benefit is that one person amongst the group can have the tiger's head propped on his/her lap. Ofcourse the tiger is alive, ofcourse the tiger is free. I jumped between my tall husband & his taller cousin, to make full use of this opportunity, shock & smiles covered their faces. The volunteers took us to the largest, laziest tiger of the lot of 8. I was asked to fold my legs on the muddy ground, and 2 people gingerly put the heavy 10 kg tiger head on my lap. I couldn't smile.

I wasn't afraid, honestly! As amazing the feeling felt, there was a surge of pity for the tigers, and that the whole setting was such a faux; hadn't it been our safeties would've been at jeopardy. There were more areas of different settings around the sanctuary, where tigers were seated under tree trunks, water falls, and out in the open. They all looked like captive celebrities out in the public service. While conversing with a volunteer, we found that the aim of this organisation is to collect enough funds to let the tigers live freely in the wild.. Feasible or not, it's something worth trying for.

There's more that happened later, I don't remember. We ended our night with chocolate brownies, vanilla ice cream, and some bad caramel sauce. After a long day, sweets came last, and wiped my previous memories off.. Alright, previous doesn't mean the WHOLE day.. :)