Stage 4 - 3rd February 2014

We booked a visit to the Chiang Mai Tiger kingdom with, I have to acknowledge, some reservations. We had heard something about the access to the animals and wondered if they would be drugged to keep them docile.  Anyway, we decided to go to see for ourselves and set off about 12 noon for a 10 minute journey to the Park where we chose to have the Full Monty, i.e. visiting all the compounds which featured Tigers from new-born through small, to medium to large, in all 5 divisions of size. The FM included DVDs of photos for two of the compounds.

The place was rather busy, lots of Chinese people enjoying Chinese NY holidays - good to see the Chinese abroad - so there was some waiting for your 'turn' but it was handled extremely well - we had a Q number and it appeared on a screen for each enclosure so you had a rough idea how long you would need to wait for your turn. The big cats and the very small cats were the most popular so we started with the medium and the large....and with a very apprehensive Dianne....see the photo of her first encounter!

I have to say we were both a little concerned for the animals and didn't like some of the things people were doing but we both felt the claim that the animals are not drugged to be justified. We saw nothing to suggest the cats were not well cared for, they appeared to be well fed and only wanted to sleep while the sun shone. The oldest cats were only 30 months old, older cats were deemed too dangerous, and each cat was hand-reared by a dedicated trainer from birth therefore developing a strong bond and lots of trust. Dianne was most enamoured with the youngsters; I was most enamoured with the big cats - their size is so impressive.

We had planned to be picked up at 2:30 by the hotel driver but we were delayed and, instead, stayed at the Park for lunch and planned to catch a taxi back, which proved a little difficult! We eventually persuaded a taxi driver to take us to the hotel in between other jobs he had, which was a bit of a relief - we were about 5 miles away but would never have found our way back on foot!

With the two CDs of photos taken by the Park photographers and my photos we have nearly 300 from one day! The photography was a bit of a challenge. As you will see there was lots of different shades of light coming through the canopy of trees, very strong sunlight with contrasting with the shadows and colours of the Tigers, etc. This meant fussing around with the camera settings - flash was not allowed so I ended up shifting the ISO settings up and down continually, then over-exposing when shooting the Tigers in the shade! But I think the results will be worth it. Three hundred photos will take me hours to edit so I'll save it for another day, I've just done a few for you to look at.

I have to say I would never have thought it possible to stand next to a Tiger and feel totally safe...can't think of many better experiences with wildlife.