Tiger Kingdom, in the far reaches of Chiang Mai,  is an excellent way to see tigers up close.  The animals here are mostly rescues from zoos and circuses, and live out their lives here; the younger ones are more tourist friends, the older ones have areas that the tourists don’t visit)

I had looked online at the packages offered at the tiger sanctuary, and decided the only reasonable course of action was to pay for the full package including the  photographer.  Unless you only want to have pictures and interact with one or two tigers, this seems to be the way to go because of the pricing options.

Before going in to the first enclosure they give you info on how to behave and what to do and what not to do. Then you clean your hands, and are escorted into the animal enclosure you selected.

The little tiger cub is adorable. The cub is the most popular animal at the park, although the poll is skewed because children can’t enter any of the other enclosures, so the other older animals don’t really have a chance in the ‘contest’.  They entertain him with twine (rather than just string) and he overall just acts like a very large young cat. While I was there, his main human showed up and he ran to the gate to greet him, just like my cats meet me at home.  It was really cute and shows how they love ‘their’ humans.

The handlers are really good at their jobs and tell you where to stand and exactly what to do (include rubbing their bellies, which they apparently love), and the photographer gives you suggestions on poses with the animals, many of which required leaning on them. Tigers are very solid muscular animals, and only the cub’s fur was what I would consider soft. Their tails are much heavier than I had expected. But it was really fun, although I did see that others were having a hard time getting to close to the animals because of fear.

I did not see any mistreatment of the animals, nor did their behavior in any way suggest to me that they were drugged. The keepers seem to really care about the animals, and know which way each animal likes to play, be rubbed, etc.  They just seemed like big housecats that you had to be way more careful around since they can kill you, but they were interested in much larger versions of the same things all my cats have been interested in. And mostly just interested in sitting on a high point or in a cool area, and lounging.

At one point I was posing with the lion on a stand that was on a platform, and I fell off the back which scared the lion, but he quickly calmed down (and I think if they were drugged that would have not fazed him as much as it did).

After that we went literally about a hundred feet up the road, to PooPooPaperPark, where they turn elephant dung into paper and paper toys. This was 100 baht per person, and I paid for the three of us (the hostel owner’ wife drove and her aunt came with). We were shown the process of drying, boiling, dying and screening the poo, to make different things they sell in their gift shop. They buy the poo from local sanctuaries which helps pay for the elephant’s exorbitant food costs, so everyone involved benefits. There are several items from the park available on Amazon (like the item to the left).

Then we drove up the mountain to Doi Suthep, which is a lovely Temple at the top of a hill, with a Jade Buddha and golden umbrellas, and a golden tower. Quite a beautiful site.