A Tiger's Roar

I love tigers. I think they are so beautiful and elegant. I always wished I could be like Princess Jasmine (from Aladdin) and have my very own pet Raja! But unfortunately I don't live in a Disney cartoon, I live in the real world where tigers maul humans for fun.
After our elephant ride we were thinking about going ziplining but Ryan made an executive decision that Tigers would be cooler then sailing through the jungle. To be honest I was bummed out. As much as I love tigers I've already seem them in a zoo. I saw them in Vegas and I've seen them on TV. I had never been zipling through the jungles of Northern Thailand before! Why would I want to see another tiger in a cage when I could experience flying through the tree's like a Gibbon Monkey!? I know I sound like a baby, and that's what Ryan told me so I stopped whining and we continued driving to the Tiger Kingdom.

HELLO! Was I peeing my pants with excitement when I learned I would actually get to touch a tiger!!! Um, way cooler then flying through the trees like a monkey. And yes, Ryan was right and I was wrong, the tigers were better. Boo.
We arrived around lunch time and so had the buffet lunch first. Weirdly an old drama classmate of mine from Lethbridge was there too with his wife. What a small world! After lunch we got ourselves all prepared to see the tigers. We really wanted to take a family picture with the big tigers and I was disappointed to learn that the kids could only go into the smallest tigers (the cubs). Knowing the kids were only able to see the one size of tigers we used the saved money to just go and see more for ourselves and decided on the smallest, small and big. We started of with the small tigers that weren't really that small at all! Just a few months old but already bigger then a golden retriever. The kids were with us although they weren't able to go inside the cage they could walk along the paths and see all the different tigers in the establishment and we thought it would make it easier. My parents could go and do their turn while we stuck close by with the kids and it would be an easier switch when our turn came up. This did not go according to plan. As soon as the kids were in the view of the tigers they didn't want to do anything but stare at them hungrily through the cages. The people that were in the cage at the time couldn't play with them and the tigers were so fixated on the kids they wouldn't respond to the trainers to turn for pictures either. The trainers had to ask us to take our kids away! While my parents were in the cages with the tigers Ryan took them down the pathway were they watched some of the different tigers laying around. They were watching 2 tigers, one of which was stalking the kids. Then Brayden turns around and says "daddy there's another one" and Ryan also turns and finds a third tiger hunting the kids then takes a leaping pounce at the fence! SCARY. I guess that's why the kids are only allowed with the babies!

When we had our turn with the tigers they were playing around and burning off some of that toddler energy in their pool. The cool thing about was that we were in there with them. Well, not in the pool but standing at the edge of the pool 2' away from where they were wrestling with each other. Water was streaming off their whipping tails onto us! It was amazing to watch them play like that right in front of us! I was able to get a few incredible action shots (including the one directly above) and they just reminded me of energetic huge kittens. Eventually they came out of the water and we were able to pet them and take some pictures with them before moving on to the tiger cubs.

The cubs were so cute! They had two different sections set up each with cubs at different ages. The first set of three were a few weeks older and were running around playing with each other. Unlike the ones we just saw a few months older, they were completely unaware of the kids and could have cared less that 'lunch' was in their grasp. Brayden and Sydney just followed them around petting them every time they stopped to take a breather. Madison was a little unsure. She is such an animal lover but we've learned that the love comes with distance. When they start to get to close the excitement subsides and nervousness takes it's place. Maybe it comes from my constantly starting to freak out when she saunters towards a street dog "MADISON, get AWAY from that nasty dog! it's GROSS!!"
I'm sure my kids will have numerous complexes because of me! Anyway, after we played around a while with the bigger cubs we got to see the tiny little 6 week old cubs. Not that they were so little, still bigger then Sheba my fat cat. We played around with it like we would a kitten. Brayden and Sydney took turns dangling leaves in front of it like it was a piece of string and it would swat it's paws at it. He was super cute!

We were able to get the little one to stay still long enough that we could all crowd in for our family picture. I was so happy with how it turned out and although it's not with the big tiger like I had originally hoped I'm just glad we got one without having to sacrafice one of the kids. We just love them too dang much ...

We then spent some time with the 3 big tigers which were so HUGE. I couldn't believe the size. They were also only 22 months old and hadn't yet reached their maximum weight. We started out behind him and slowly were able to lay on him and feeling him breathing and knowing if he got mad at me there wasn't much I could do was a little nerving. But hey! I've done it now, no need to do it again. And, we only live once...
For more shots of us and the kids with the tigers, just go here