Kanchanaburi, Thailand (Part 1)

feeding a baby tiger cub. Spilled milk on his paw

My trip out to Bangkok has been a spontaneous one. That’s the thing about Singapore- it’s so close to other SE Asian countries that while you mindlessly sip away on your Gongcha drink one day, you say, hey, I want to go to Thailand next weekend.  Once I knew where my heart was this weekend, I pulled out my usual Evernote and excel sheets and got down to research. I made a tight schedule for three nights and four days- Bangkok city tour the first day, Kanchanaburi providence the second day, and Thai cooking school & shopping the third day. As we have come to realize living in Singapore, our ‘Friday (Thursday night) to Sunday’ long-weekend trip schedule actually works really well for us, as we are usually exhausted by the third day from all the action packed weekend.

I’ve decided to post about the second day first because I LOVE animals and it was a day we we wandered into the rural areas of Thailand to see the tigers and elephants. Actually, it was cooler than just “seeing,” I got to TOUCH these fierce creatures (tigers) and bathe with them (more like splashing around with elephants)! We usually don’t use tour companies, but we decided that we’d use tour guides in Southeastern Asian countries for three reasons: 1. they offer private tours for cheap- we hate bus group tours as we suspect everyone will lag, and there would be a lot of time wasted. 2. Some may rip off foreigners if you don’t go around with a local 3. It’s safer and convenient to get around… and most locals don’t speak English.  At the end of the trip, we agreed it was the best decision ever. The first company we used for Bangkok city tour was the best- with big comfortable seats on a spacious van, unlimited refills of refreshments, and airconditioning – and the second, reasonable. Not great as first, but still okay. We got spoiled by the first day tour so it was a bit hard being inside a sedan for 2~3 hours straight when we made a trip to the outside suburbs. 😛 In any event, we had soo much fun seeing the animals! Here is our personalized itinerary with a private tour on our second day to Kanchanaburi providence (I chose what I wanted to see):

7:00 : Pick us up at the hotel
8:00 : – Passing Salt Farms and Shrimp Farms.
8:15 – 9:00 – Train Market and wait for the passing train
9:30 – Floating market (take a paddle boat there).
12:15 – Arrive Tiger Temple and attend cub feeding.
14:15 – Late lunch in a local restaurant.
15.20 – Elephant bath.
16:40 – the bridge over the river kwai.
19.30 – Arrive back to Bangkok safely.

1. Train Market:

Train Market- in 3 minutes warning, the pack everything up and let the train pass by (railroad in the middle). Once it passes, they move everything back as if nothing happened!

Us at the market- amazed!

2. Floating Market

Floating Market- goods are sold from boats. amazing!

We also tried the local Mango sticky rice and home made coconut ice cream. It was THE best coconut ice cream we’ve ever had!

3. Tiger Temple at Kanchanaburi providence

We got to interact with cubs, feed them, and take pictures with the big ones. It was a bit scary at first because these ‘cubs’ were bigger than I had originally thought (four times bigger than my dog, Milk!) but they were so cute and active. It was our first time ever seeing them so up-close, without a fence in between us!

he wouldn’t let go of my thai dress haha

Milk to feed cubs

Picture with the adult tigers:

Some pictures of us with beautiful scenery (the hat he’s wearing is Thai traditional hat hehe):

4. Drinking Thai Singha beer and enjoying the best Thai dishes we’ve ever had! @ local Thai restaurant nearby

5. Last but not least.. bath with the elephants. It was the most fun experience for me. I never knew elephants were so cute and smart! They did several tricks for me in the river and I had an awesome time hanging out with them aka falling, getting splashed, climbing on top of them, balancing on their backs on foot, etc.