Tiger Kingdom

     I'm sure nobody is very surprised that once again, I haven't updated my blog in a pretty long while.  To start catching up.. again.. I wanted to just post pictures from my trip with Parker and his parents (when they came out to visit a couple of weeks ago) to Tiger Kingdom.  It's a place just outside of Chiang Mai where you can go to get inside cages with not only adult tigers, but also the little babies, and medium sized ones.  It's pretty crazy... I gotta say I will never experience something quite like that again in my lifetime.  So, you're probably thinking right about now: "how the hell could you get in cages to pet the tigers without them ripping your arm off?"  and then you might think that they get drugged.  Actually though, their entire mission statement revolves around the fact that they do not drug them, nor do they even need to be drugged.  First of all, they're bred, and raised into captivity, so they get trained (with just a tap on the nose with a small bamboo stick) not to be too playful with biting or clawing from when they are young.  They also talk about how tigers sleep for 18 hours a day, and are nocturnal, so that during visiting hours when the park is open, they're at their laziest.  Now, at this point maybe you're thinking "so what, they could just be saying that, and actually are drugging them."  We saw it all first hand when we went into the baby tiger cages and played with them.  They were getting tapped on the nose anytime they were getting a little bit too aggressive with their playfulness.  Check out the website and read about it more if you're interested: http://www.tigerkingdom.com/Home.htm  (its not a very well put together website, and looks a little sketchy, but so it goes with so much of what you see in Thailand).  It really is a pretty awesome place, and it's extremely clear to the visitors of the park that the tigers have plenty of room, and are not just cooped up in cages all day long with no room.  Enjoy the pictures!!!!