Face Time
Digging through tons of shots to pick out a few for my post about Noom the other day I ran across one of my favorites from our first visit to Tiger Kingdom in Chiang Mai and thought I’d share. All the warnings about how to approach the tigers fell on deaf ears, and since we both survived you gotta admit getting face time in with a tiger is pretty cool.
Of course that set the tone for our second visit and as soon as we stepped into the enclosure Noom decided he needed to rub noses with a lion for a change. I went with this shot, but the look on the trainer’s face was almost as priceless.
King of the Jungle
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How on earth did Noom get face to face with these cats? Is there something outside of the shot that we can’t see that is restraining them? Plus the photographer, presumably you, is also very close, or at a distance with a good zoom – and no nervous fear filled hand shivers to distort the picture.
All it takes SA is a fist full of baht and a head full of air.
Tiger Kingdom in Chiang Mai is set up for you to enter the enclosures with the cats.
They are surprisingly docile, or maybe that’s surprisingly drugged.
You are NOT supposed to approach them from the front (though I admit the idea of sneaking up on them from the back seemed a worse idea to me).
The ‘trainers’ encourage you to molest the animals for a photo op, and usually the cats put up with it (but if you Google ‘tourist attacked at Tiger Kingdom’ you’ll see that is not always the case).
You get to pick the age of the cats you want to play with; the cubs are for pussies.
We went with the next age group on our first visit, which is when I snapped the top photo. With my dyke friends we went with the teenagers and they were a bit more aggressive.
If you put your common sense on hold, or are Thai, it is an extraordinary experience!
Smile on the face of the tiger is good too. That duo shot is incredible. Scary, majestic… Can’t find the right adjective.
Worrisome works when you’ve just been told approaching them from the front is an aggressive move and the man you love does so anyway. But that’s Noom. But you’ll note that tiger looks just as happy about meeting Noom as he was of meeting it. Of course once the ice was broken it was a big cuddle fest and the two of us and three tigers were piled together in a big ball. I’ll have to post some more of those photos one day.