Learning Thai

Yesterday we had a very big, long, action filled day, hosted by our friends Neno and Oay. They showed up bright and early to pick us up in their pickup and we headed to the Gulf of Thailand.

Our first stop was by the water to visit a huge pool of sea turtles. They were huge with beautiful brown and green patterned shells and we had fun feeding them squid.

Next, we went on to the Sriracha Tiger Zoo. Neno and Oay dropped us off there and went on to visit Oay's family home in the area. We enjoyed a lot of wild sights (some more enjoyable than others). A list of some of the more odd sights:
1)tiger cubs nursing from a pig
2)A dog, tiger, and pig in the same cage.
3) people dressed up in "caveman" style tiger patterned outfits lounging in a pen with the tigers
4)The scorpion queen- covered in scorpions
5)A "pig doing calculations"
6) piglets in a cage with a tiger
7)A huge pen filled with hundreds of crocodiles- we walked over on a bridge with a flimsy rusting fence with lots of gaping holes.
The more enjoyable activities included feeding beans to camels and bunnies and a pretty amazing old fashioned (ie: before animal rights) circus with tigers jumping through hoops of fire, etc.

We definitely saw more tigers than ever before in our lives!

Claire was actually brave enough to give a bottle to these piteously yowling tiger clubs (the volume was amazing in there).

Both girls loved this activity. Claire is now convinced that she needs a baby bunny as a pet.

But the day wasn't over yet! We had a stop at a "Thai rest area" for a fast lunch and then headed to the Kow Kiaw (Green Mountain) Open Zoo. This turned out to be a truly amazing zoo spread out over miles with displays winding through the mountain. We took a tram ride through and saw so many animals including: giraffes, rhinos,white tigers, monkeys, flamingos, deer, etc. We enjoyed seeing the roaming monkeys and all the beautiful mountain surroundings

Our hosts for the day, Neno, Oay and kids, Putter and Grace, plus one friend. Oay's mom was also with us.

Eliza and a leopard cub.

Believe it or not, yet one more activity was ahead. We were all getting a little bedraggled at this point and did some catnapping in the truck on the way to the beach.

The beach at Bang Saen. It's very popular with Thais as it's the closest beach to Bangkok. This was a holiday so it was incredibly crowed with fully dressed people enjoying the water.

Tom and Neno

Eliza's favorite activity- burying her feet.

On the way home, Claire enjoyed a brief ride in the back of the truck.

Arrived home very tired, 13 hours after we began, ate a big supper of grilled pork and headed straight to bed. Today we're spending the day recovering at home and tomorrow plan to take a train to Ayutayya.
I'll soon be posting other random pictures of more fun activities with the grandparents this week.
-Candice