Bangkok round two, here we go... Koh San road and finding accomondation is like finding Irish people in a bar! Not the case today, we spent ages walking the streets trying to find something half decent and like always the first place we went to was the one we decided to stick with. Anyway with no time to waste we had to book our tiger trip and a bus/boat to Koh Tao all for the following day and fit in a pampering session for Rach as she hasn't felt like a girl for almost a month! We all seperate and took each shop one at a time and meet at the end to discuss which was the cheapest. We manger to get it all sorted for the tigers tomorrow get back at 7pm and board the bus at 8pm for Koh Tao. All happy we headed to a nice Thai man selling chicken on a stick and corn on the cob. We had to wait a while for the BBQ to heat up and then all of a sudden we heard the Thai lady shout hey white English girls down the street. Turns out the bus was full so we would have to pay an extra £2.50 to get a better bus and boat if we wanted to leave tomorrow. After a long discussion on what we could buy with that money we decide to go for it, we wanted the sea. But luck wasn't on our side and it was a Thai holiday and the fare doubled so we gave in and changed it for the following day, this gave us an extra day to chill out.

We went for a quick drink as we were still sweaty from the boarder crossing, then one chang tower turned into another which turned into a few buckets in an open mic bar. We all fell in love with young English guy who was free styling on the guitar and mic, singing about his trip, being conned and falling in love. He was amazing and it came at the perfect time as I was telling rach about all the cool characters you meet travelling. After a few more buckets and roses brought for us all we headed to a club. We saw lots of young, old, black, white men with nice young Thai women. It was strange to see as it was so open and in your face it kinda of became the norm. We didn't stay too long, we brought some cheese toasties, more chang and headed back for some tunes and bed.

The next day we arose a little worse for wear but super excited for the tiger temple. We had our monk approved clothes on, knee length trousers and long sleves on. In real terms we had lots of clothes on and were sweat boxes!

Our driver was wicked, he had the best tunes with a full base jumping and our little English voice singing at top volume. The driver loved it but the other pasangers weren't so keen. After about two hours the driver stopped and said he would see us in half an hour. Not knowing what to do we went for a walk and found out we were at the bridge over the river kwai. We walked along the road past a boring museum about the war, which I manger to convice them it wouldn't be worth paying to go in. We continued further down the road to find a man with a leopard. He said he was collecting money for animals and children, he even had posters and pictures so it must have been lagit? We each paid our 100 thb (£2) to feed the cub a bottle of milk and get our picture take. Rachel was first, she looked so natural cradling the baby leopard in her arms. As soon as the milk was all gone the man took the leopard from Rachey while Becki swapped places with her and got ready to hold the little scamp! He was a good cub for them but then it was my turn. Like before the guy swapped the bottled over I posed and Becki quickly jumped into the frame. Getting a little greedy we got the guy to take a picture of all three of us with the leopard. We smiled for the camera but then the milk ran out, turns out the cute leopard becomes a wild cat when he's not being fed. He quickly turned around and bit my arm. He didn't do it to hurt me, he was just playing and trying to get free but it scared all of us and I dropped him! The man grabbed his lead and tied him up and then fussed over me. I was fine it was just a few scratchs and two bruises, to be fair I liked it to be able to say I was bitten by a leopard!

After all that excitment we hurried along to look at the death railway and remernise about our last visit five years ago. Eveything looked the same, we could even remember where we had our photo taken. Within minutes we had photos taken in the same place plus some standard jumping shots! Time was running out so we grabbed an iced drink and headed back to the van.

On the way back we noticed that the leopard has been swooped for a baby tiger. The tiger was a lot more chilled out and liked just sitting in the shade. As a sorry for the slight accident before the guy let me feed the baby tiger for free. This time the tiger enjoyed being stroked and took his bottle slowly as you had to feed him compared to the leopard which used his hyne legs to feed himself.

We jumped aboard our bus and headed to the real tiger temple. When we went before we all had our reseved judgments about the tigers health. Were they drugged? Had their teeth and claws been pulled out and were they kept in horrible conditions? Of course we all know every animals should be kept in the wild but it's not a perfect world. This time as you entered the temple there was a FAQ board with all these answers and questions. The temple was started by one monk who studied close by the village. Some wild bore and smaller animals were injured near by and as a buddist it's his responsibility to help anything as he may come back as one. The monk did this and the animals recovered. Then some poachers were stopped with a family of tigers and these too were given to the monk. The story goes on like this and that's how the temple started. Each tiger is hand raised so is not scared of humans however a great duty of care is still given to them.

I don't know how true this is but the park had changed for the better since five years ago and it's the same monk who feeds the grown tiger at the end. the park now has international volunters and is expanding to house tiger cubs into the wild. On one hand yes the new money into the temple made it better and I am sure the conditions have improved I just worry it's going to get too comerilised and be copied over Thailand to make a quick buck.

We did the walk and photo snaps like last time. One Thai takes you by the hand, the other takes photos and you have to follow. They basically lead you around the tigers back and just far enough away from each one incase they were to jump. It was ok but the tigers were hot and it was like a covayer belt of tourist.

We quickly left refusing the offer to do it again for free and went for a walk. There were lots of opportunities to have your photo one on one with different size tigers, all had different back drops and were slightly different. We had a few but then we saw where the real action was happening. A tourist was in with the tigers playing catch and washing them. I wanted in!!!!! The lady saw the look on my face and said we could wash, feed and play with the tigers for 45 mins for £20.... Um hell yea sign me up baby!

We had to wait twenty minutes so we wondered of to see the black bear in the corner. He was massive but the most active and intrested in us bear ever. He would climb up as huge as he could, put his head on his paws and just look at us, then move to the other side with an interged look on his face. We took a few pictures and heard our names being called for the tigers.

There could be up to 12 people at once but we were the only ones booked on. We followed a nice Thai women who spoke English really well as she had studdied at Brighton so even knew Bournemouh. We were given a few rules; don't run, tigers chase, don't touch their face, tigers bite and to remember to look behind you as there will be 12 tigers in with you and they come from every direction! Fair and easy enough, let go for it!

We were shown our tiger toys, they were either a plastic bin bag on the end of a bamboo stick or a kitten food bag and bright coloured ribon on bamboo. The insructions were simple, get the tiger intrested, move it around and when they pounce lift it up. The idea was to lift it high enough so the tiger couldn't get it as you wouldnt get it back and they would eat it if they had the chance. Really it was like playing with a bigger stripped Simba. We followed our Thai women who had us by our hands and entered the pen. I'm not gonna lie to you i was bricking it! They look big and strong on the tv, well being less than a meter away wih no glass between us they looked bigger abd stronger. They didn't seem too bothered by us and we headed to the front of the enclouser by all the tourists. I felt like a celebrity as all I could hear was click, click, click and see millions of flashesh. The experince cost £20 that was it so I wondered why more people didn't do it? Maybe scared?:) all three of us stood in a line, Tachey on the end me in the middle and Becki on the other end. My Thai women kept pushing me closer to the water and shouting up, up at me! I wasn't really liserning to her as I was keeping my eyes open for the tigers. Suddenly out of no where a huge tiger charged straight towards me and started to leap into the air, clearing the steps with no troubles. The tiger headed for me at top speed and manger to zoom between my thai lady and myself who weren't even a meter apart! Remebering what the boss lady had told us about playing with the tigers I lifted my toy in the air hoping it would attack that instead of me! It was ok thou I had nothing to worry about the tiger didn't even flinch when i did this and jumped claws out onto the back of another tiger. Phew close call! Like I said before the tigers defintly weren't drugged or had their teeth or claws removed as we saw it all. Huge 5 cm White teeth, massive sharpe claws they extended and withdrew depending on how they attacked and more enegery that a group of todlers on blue smarties!

For the first twenty minutes we wriggled our toys around, banging in on the floor, splashing it in the water an even on the tigers back. The tigers enjoyed this as we all had lots of energy. The tigers manged to jump higher than we could hold the toys though so they manged to steel it from us. We did our best to keep hold of it but it was a loosing battle, so we just had to wait for the tigers to loose interest so we could quickly grab it back!

Two more Indian girls wanted in on the action so joined us. However the excitment was a little too much for one who came into the enclosure and walked right back out again. She decided she would wash them when they were tied up. The other one got a bit more stuck in but she wasn't half as keen as we were. I started to get a bit more confident and asked my lady if I could get in the water. She wasn't too up for the idea so the boss women took me in. The water was full of green algie so it was super slippy and it wasn't safe for us to be in the middle of the pool. In all the excitment my £2 flip flops broke in the water so I was bearfoot. The water was all warm, I think tigers have the same problem as children. They hit water and have to pee!! Nice I was being splashed with tiger pee. I did as I was told, kept my back agaist the wall and wriggled my toy around. The tigers were way more into this game an they were coming from every angel to have ago. It was a lot harder in the water as the bags just filled up with water so were heavy and getting the toy back was a mission that almost killed us physcially! We did this game for another twenty or so minutes swooping in and out with each other. We all looked dead so they took us and the tigers back in.

We washed off while some of the tigers ate their freshly cooked chicken. I swear they ate better than I did :) after we cleaned ourselves we had to clean two of the tigers. First of all we had to scrub the soap into his fur one at a time. Problem was our little man didn't want to sit and we were not allowed to be by his face. It looked really funny the tiger walking around and us following his bottom with soap hands. We all had a go then it was time to spray him clean. We got the hose pipe and got him wet. We had to try and not get his eyes so pull the studs backwards. It took three of us to work together to get him clean. As a reward for being good he was given some chicken. What you want us to put our hands in his mouth??? Crazy people, but yea why not? Our tiger didn't like it off the floor so we had to hold the chicken in our hands until the last minute. This was a little daunting and a few bits of chicken were dropped but all in all he seemed happy.

We started packing up when I decided to pipe up and ask if we could see the cubs? I have learnt if u don't ask u don't get. The lady was proud of her cubs and she wanted to show them off. We went into their cage and played with them like normal kittens. They were so cute but like normal baby cats their teeth are still quite sharp so we were glad when the boss returned with some chicken for us to feed them. We had to make sure they were in small bits and they were giving it to them slowly. It was amazing and the relationship between the animals and their keepers was pure love. The keepers had to be strong with the tigers and gave them a good hit when they got too close but there was a mutral respect that excisted. We washed off again, said thank you and headed back to our van. On the way back we were told to hurry up as the massive tiger and the monk owner was on their way. We did as we were told and after we had of photo taken with him. I don't know if u saw the photo of all three of us with the monk and tiger but you can notice the size difference!

We ran back to our bus as we were a little late. We jumped aboard, looked at our photos and fell fast asleep. We had a few minutes to eat some KFC before we headed back to our hostel for some much needed sleep.

The next day was spent lazying around Bangkok buying a few bits and pieces, allowing Rachey to go off for her pampering session returning with beautiful hair but a huge complex about her hairy *****, then we jumped onto our over night bus and boat to Koh Tao.