Waterfalling Into a Tiger's Lap

This Sunday I returned from another busy weekend excursion and concluded that I’m leading a pretty unusual life.

Here’s a question everyone gets on Mondays: “Hey, what did you do this weekend?”

Normal responses:
“I went to a movie.”
“I hung out.”

Answers these days:
“I rode elephants and rafted down the river Kwae”
“I swam in waterfalls and pet tigers.”

Before I go any further, I want to clarify: I know I’m talking about touching tigers and elephants, but I hope I’m not exoticizing this country. Life here seems pretty outlandish sometimes, but Thailand is also very westernized. Most of the monks here have cell phones. All of the children have facebook. There’s a 7/11 on every corner. Granted, the Lays chips flavors sold in a Thai 7/11 are BBQ Prawn, Nori Seaweed and Pickle Explosion… but you get the idea.

On to the good stuff! This past weekend was spent in Kanchanaburi, where we spent part of our orientation but missed some of the most important sites.

Saturday we went to Erawan National Park to see the waterfalls, and it was just my speed. There were some Europeans, but there were also plenty of Thai families, and none of the waterfalls were too crowded. The waterfalls were all blue, glowing and so lagoon-like that I expected a nymph of some sort to be bathing in one. The falls had seven layers, and the top waterfall was nearly empty—this was where we spent most of our time, just sitting on the smooth rocks as water poured around us.



Most of the pools had pesky little fish that felt like they were biting us, but I think they were actually nibbling off our dead skin. Still a pretty awkward sensation. It was funny to watch people get nipped for the first time and let out a little shriek.

The Tiger Temple on Sunday was pretty neat, but I definitely felt more like a tourist than I have in a while. As the brochure explained it, the public was allowed to see tigers in the middle of the day, when they were digesting and napping in the peak of the heat. During the mornings and evenings they roam free with the monks, but for the couple hours when tourists see them they have to be on leashes. It honestly didn’t seem to matter much, many of the tigers were lying lazily in one spot or just plain sleeping. I initially wondered whether it was worth it, but I decided there’s nothing quite like laying my head on a tiger’s stomach—not sure if I’ll ever be able to do something like that again.



On my way home I ended up at the wrong bus station in Bangkok, and tried to take a motorbike to the correct station. In spite of repeating the location name three times to my motorbike driver, I got dropped off somewhere arbitrary. At least I didn’t pay too much for the ride—the driver actually gave me a discount when I mentioned I was a teacher. I walked a bit until I found the sky train, at which point my friend called and explained that they were all on the last bus to Chonburi and were restraining the driver from leaving without me. That was a fun evening—I’m only half kidding, I think cutting things close keeps life interesting.