Tigers and an Irish invasion

Recently i met up with two friends from Maynooth, Rob and Linda, who are on an adventure of their own touring the countries of South East Asia. The route they took through Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos is what i want to do just in reverse. On this particular weekend in Chiang Mai it also happened to be the flower festival which meant a few of my teacher buddies would be up for a visit as well. All this boded well for a good weekend in the capital of the north! However when i got to CM on the Saturday morning (early start as per fricking usual) i was cursing the festival as it took me around 3 times as long to get in to where i wanted to go from the bus station. Thailand love their parades and this one was big, it had giant floats made of flowers and everything. Of course, no parade in thailand is complete without its marching band component. This had at least one and some of the songs the bang out are good. There is nothing like listening to a marching brass band blasting out a rendition of 'Smoke on the Water' swiftly followed by 'The Flinstones'. Epic stuff i can tell you!

Anyway i get as far as my hostel, dump some gear and then head to the Tha Pae gate where i had arranged to meet Rob and Linda at a specific time. This would be done without the modern wonder of a mobile phone as neither of them had one that was working in Thailand. At this point i bumped into four of the gang teaching over here including the other two irish people on the program. When Rob and Linda showed up we irish were in the majority for my first time since landing in this country. So i brought this lot to a local place where i'd had some good hangover food the occasional sunday. The guy who runs it is real nice and recognises me each time i go back. He had a big smile on his face when he saw me with a big group too. He got chatting and after finding out i was a teacher and would be finishing up in this part of the world soon he offered me a free meal before i jet off, SCORE! So buoyed by this piece of news i suggested we all head to something in CM i had been curious about for a while but not got around to visiting, The Tiger Kingdom. We hailed a songthaew and bundled in and arrived at our destination an hour later. I didnt realise it was quite so far out of town.......

Now Tiger Kingdom is a small park with large enclosures of tigers (they have a new one with lions as well now) and the draw is that you can get into the enclosure and get up close and personal with these oversized kitties. You choose whether you want to get in with the big ones or the little ones or splash out and go for both. Our group kind of split down the middle with some choosing the big guys and some choosing the little ones. I spent around 10EUR to get into a cage with 3 tigers and spend 25 minutes with them. I chose the little ones who turned out to be the size of your average dog. They are just tame cats really and you get to watch them play and get your pic taken with them. Our trainer was all for us lying down beside them and putting our heads on their stomachs. He also told us they eat tourists and that it was nearly dinnertime. We all laughed (a bit nervously) and he said it was actually chickens that they were fed. They also sleep 18 hours a day. Easy life huh? When they get over about 2 years old they are sent off to the zoo just in case their wilder instincts start to come through and they do actually eat some tourists or trainers. Cant be too safe!
After our tiger trip we arranged to meet up for dinner and have a few drinks. A good itialian later we are hitting the bars. Our numbers increased but the Irish still stayed in the majority. We had a great time watching the incomprehension on the americans faces when we talked to each other, they just couldnt keep up with how fast us irish talk. It was nice to let loose as i speak pretty slowly almost every day of the week when im talking to thai people. It was a pretty good night and it ended in Fabrique again. The next day i woke up with a less than comfortable hangover but was happy nonetheless. I'd had a good day and night and had got some travel tips for when i finish my attempt at this teaching lark and go bumming round the world for 6 months. What more can a guy ask?