tigers!

I spent my last day in Chiang Mai yesterday on a trek. Normally treks are all about hiking up a mountain and camping out etc.. as i am limited on time (and money) i did a one day tour. The day started out with an hour long elephant ride. Everyone else in my group was a couple, so being the odd one out i got to sit on the elephants neck instead of on the seat on her back! it was really cool, but really bumpy (i was on her shoulder blades after all..) and quite hard to balance. the uys sitting behind me had to keep me steady a couple times. it was so amazing though, ours name was Lina and she ate everything in sight. Like uprooting shrubs as we walked by them. I was proud. Next was visitng 2 hill tribles, which was a bit of a let down. i expected to see their whole village very authentic. Mostly it was a a whole bunch of stalls with people selling stuff. nice stuff, handmade clothing, wovem blankets etc.. but not what i was expecting. We "hiked" to a waterfall next (a 30 minute walk down a road... more to save on gas i think..) which was freaking cold, but it was really humid that day, so it was kind of nice. Last on the agenda was bamboo rafting, which is basically a whole bunch of big bamboo sticks wound together with a guy at the front making sure you down crash into anything as you drift down the river. Luckily our guide ad us put our bathing suits on first becasue youre on the raft, but its pretty much submerged in water the entire time.

I had just enough to get back to my guesthouse, change and get on a night bus to Bangkok. I spent all of 45 minutes there and was on yet another bus to Kanchanburi, which is where i am now. The big attraction here is Tiger Temple, which is sort of a giant animal sanctuary, and you can pet the tigers and get photos. Its 300B to get in, which was fine, its for tigers after all.. Technically its a temple because the monks take care of the animals. Not thinkin about this first, i show up in a tank top, which is of course a big nono. it was an hours bus ride to get a different shirt, so what do it do? well! they seel shirts at the temple! of course they do. So 300B later im sporting a brand new, hardly tacky "thailand tiget temple" short. now i realize 300B is only 10$ canadain, but here some perspecitive. Im paying 90B fr my hotel tonight ($3) and i paid 20 for lunch today (75 cents). so 300 is a fairly obnoxious price. To gain some closure for it, i took 2 completmentary water bottles (yes you heard right. 2) and took a giant roll of toilet paper (no bathroom ever has toliet paper. just a hose). Then i go into the temple area (buddha statue on a cement block.. pretty unimpressive) and a monk has the nerve to ask me for a donation before i leave! I very polietly said that i had just "donated" 600B to get in the temple and i thought that was enough. Then i left laughing to myself. I realize i just told a story about how i laughed at a monk, but i was a bit put out.