I awoke bright and early and hit the beach, as would become my daily routine. At breakfast I was invited by the guesthouse staff to join a car tour they were organizing. They explained that the more people who joined, the cheaper it would be per person. At 10 o’clock, 6 of us piled into a brand-new, very comfortable Mitsubishi Outlander and headed out.
First stop was “Tiger Kingdom” where we could see many many tigers and for a fee we could enter their enclosures and have our pictures taken with them. We chose to visit with the medium size tigers, which were big enough in my opinion. They were 8 tigers in the enclosure, all lounging around in the grass or next to the pool. Our guide led us around and we could touch, hug, talk to and pose with several of the giant cats. Truly an amazing experience!
Next stop was lunch at an open-air patio restaurant sticking off the side of a mountain. The spicy crab dish I had was delicious and fiery! After lunch, we headed up to see the Big Buddha at the top of the mountain. He was not finished yet but at 45m tall he was very impressive and I could feel the peaceful aura of the place, despite the construction workers, scaffolding and tourist.
After that, we went to the “Phuket Cobra Show” which was basically a snake zoo with a few other related animals, plus a live cobra show. The show was incredible and the snake masters were truly daring. At one point “Mr Johnny” was dancing with 4 cobras, at another point he caught a cobra in each hand! We could have our photos taken with some of the snakes during the show as well. The MC also offered some great advice, which would come in handy later in my trip (you’ll find out in Ed’s Travel Blog: Thailand Day 3). Basically the advice was: if you see a snake in the woods, run!
We finished the tour with a brief stop at the “viewpoint”, which is a beautiful park located at the top of a mountain with views south and west of the ocean, Phuket coastline and several small island. We were there just before sunset so the view was especially great. Oh- I almost forgot- we also stopped along the road to feed a baby elephant! In summary, day 3 was tigers, Buddha, snakes, elephants and a view!
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