Scared The Death Out Of Me - Week 3

Scared The Death Out Of Me - Week 3

Day 15 started quietly, with us recovering from the festivities of the night before, and then getting ready to head out to the market. We had no guest to join us on our Market trip this time, so we went it alone, with a plan of actually purchasing some goodies this time, and purchase some goodies we did! There wasn't much I actually wanted, other than having my eye on Seasons 1 + 2 of Boardwalk Empire, but I ended up getting a few extra bits and pieces. Nic had her eye on a new handbag, and a few other bits, and again ended up with a nice little haul. 

We broke our trip to the market up a bit more this time. We did a bit of shopping, then had a break for a few snacky bits of food (another of those delicious Chicken Sausage's was on the menu), then more shopping, before stopping for a cocktail in a bucket before finishing off the shopping. We ended up leaving with a new handbag, 3 t-shirts, 2 knock-off dvds, a couple of notepads and a partridge and a pear-tree. Not a bad effort!

The market wasn't quite as shocking as our first visit, as we were expecting to see small cute dogs in cages for sale, but one element of our visit did shock us. We headed into the 24/7 shop across the road to check out the Absolut collection (which was pretty much non-existant) but spotted something much more interesting. As we were browsing the store we came across an end display which had fish food on the top shelf and small glass bottles on the middle which had live fish in for sale. I'm not quite sure how long they'd been there, or how these fairly large fish got into this bottle, but it was pretty shocking, especially for Nicola, who couldn't believe her eyes!

Day 16 was one we were looking forward to, the first of our booked excursions, to Xtreme Adventure; Thailand's answer to Go Ape. We got picked up at 12, and our Adventure began. As we approached the Forrest area there was a beautiful golf course, with the most amazing clubhouse I've ever seen, which was basically a Thai Temple, it looked awesome.

We were then greeted by the Staff, and got kitted up. I was expecting a harness and possibly a helmet, but it was a bit more than that. Harness went on, then a hair-net (which topped the look off for me), a helmet, and a pair of fingerless gloves. It was a pretty sexy look. Once suited up and ready to go we got given a simple tutorial of how to use the harness and different clips, and we were off.

As we traipsed up the incredibly steep hill to our first checkpoint, the excitement began to build. We did a few simple things to begin with, walking over shaky bridges, and things like that before our first zip-line and the first challenge of the day. We stood at the bottom of what looked like the tallest tree I'd ever seen, as well as the first tree I'd ever seen that had been turned into a rock climbing wall. The tree was then split into 2 sections. I volunteered to conquer the tree first, and proceeded to climb. As I began my ascent, the main difficulty came in actually reaching the next hand and foot holds, which, if it was hard for me, I had no idea how Nic would get on.

Nic modelling our wonderful outfit for the day

After struggling my way up the tree I made it to the first platform, turned to our guide and asked if we were moving on from here to the next activity, he said no and told me to keep climbing. Joy! I soldiered on and made it to the top of the tree sweating and aching, it was not easy! Then it was Nicola's turn, and, to her credit, she made it up that tree like a champ. She looked like she was struggling at the half way point, but the fact she made it to the top was an awesome effort, that climb was hard, especially when you're blessed with little legs like she is! 

Once that experience was out of the way it got a little easier, but considering we were still on the blue circuit, the easiest of the 3, we had no idea what was to come. Fortunately, the rest of the blue course, and the slightly more difficult red course weren't too bad at all. The final course however, the Black, presented a good mix of a couple of really fun zip lines, one of which featured a bungee cord which propelled us back in the direction we'd come from; as well as some really difficult bits, one of which actually battled with the tree as the hardest portion of the course.

We got through it though, which apparently is a good achievement according to the guys that work there, and really enjoyed our couple of hours at Xtreme Adventure. I left with blisters on my hands and a t-shirt sweaty enough to convince someone I'd just run a marathon, but we had a great time, and if we ever returned to Phuket it's something we would definitely do again.

Nicola tackling one of the nice bridges on the easy circuit

Me flying through the air like Indiana Jones

Nicola on the "Slide"

Some Xtreme zip-line action

"The Killer" Beat the tree to the hardest part of the course for me!

Nic enjoying another Zip Line

We've also got a few videos of that day, but I'll edit them into another compilation clip, maybe not with a copyrighted song this time, and put it on later today! There's one particularly funny clip of Nicola getting caught in the ropes on the Tarzan Swing which is definitely worth seeing!

Once our Xtreme Adventure was over, it was back to reality, and one final week of training. We actually managed a few sessions this week, 4 overall, which considering we only managed 2 the week previous was a good effort. There were no crazy beach workouts, or big buddha runs, as our personal favourite of the trainers had returned to the US, so it was just standard Muay Thai sessions this week, with a spot of Yoga and Spinning bikes for Nicola. Training went well though, and I personally felt like I was starting to get the hang of the techniques, especially the punching combinations. I don't have the flexibility in my hip muscles to be good at the body and head kicking techniques yet, but punches, elbows, knees and low kicks I started to get good at, and actually got to the point where I was giving people some beatings in sparring. I did get a good hammering in one of the sessions, by some dude who clearly wasn't a beginner, who kicked and knee'd me in the stomach pretty hard, and put me on my arse after catching one of my kicks, the bastard! I'm not quite Buakaw Por Pramuk (who I'm sure you're familiar with) yet, but the training was good, and I'm pretty sure I'll keep it up in the UK.

Throughout the whole week, we were building up towards the second booked excursion we had, a popular theatre show on Phuket island, FantaSea. The website promised dancing elephants, the full story of the city of Kamala, a gourmet buffet dinner and an overall great experience. The day arrived, and we were supposed to be being picked up at 5, but given the slightly dodgy nature of the booking process, we were a little worried. We didn't need to be, as at about 5.10pm the FantaSea mini-bus turned up and we headed off. 

When we got there, we picked up our tickets and moved in. I don't really know how to explain the whole place really, but Nicola let me know it was similar to a Disney style arrangement, but on a much smaller scale. There were tourists posing with everything, anything and anyone, constant music, game stalls on every corner, several restaurants, a few of the usual souvenir shops, as well as a few premium shops which specialised in Swarovski crystal, it was a good little set-up. The main 2 attractions were the huge Palace of the Elephants, which is where the Show took place, and the Golden Kinnaree  buffet restaurant. 

The Palace of The Elephants

The Restaurant

After a brief look around we decided to head to the hotly anticipated Buffet. As we walked in, the first thing that struck us was the sheer size of the place, it was huge. I guess it had to be, as it was designed to seat 4000 people, but this room could have seated more, it was ridiculously big. I presumed that the size meant endless options, and a surefire guarantee that we'd have an awesome meal. I was wrong. Each section of seating had the exact same set-up, with a selection of about 10 choices of food. There was some Green Curry with chicken wings, rice, some overcooked penne pasta with disgusting breaded chicken, chips, southern fried chicken, and a few other generic Thai options, none of which really got the taste buds excited. It was a massive disappointment, though we couldn't have really expected much for an extra £4 on top of our entrance fee. The food wasn't the only issue though, getting our drinks was even more of a challenge. Our waitress came over, and we ordered our drinks, an Amaretto and lemonade, and a Gin and Apple, a pretty simple order really. Our drinks arrived, and it wasn't quite what we'd ordered. A shot of Gin and a shot of Amaretto arrived, not quite what we fancied. We asked to get it changed, and, to be fair, it was sorted out very swiftly. 

The next challenge came when we wanted to leave, and asked for the bill. Nicola asked for the bill while I was picking from the equally disappointing dessert selection (though I did have the best chocolate cake I've had in Thailand so far, but that's not saying much, the chocolate here is awful!), and I expected it to all be sorted by the time I returned to the table. Apparently, when it arrived, the bill had our 2 drinks on it, plus 15 shots of gin. We do enjoy a drink every now and then, but 15 shots of gin over dinner is a little excessive, even for a student. We got it changed, but for some reason, our bill wasn't returned to us, so, we did what you usually do, and asked for our bill. We got given a drinks menu. Then, another equally confused member of staff tried to suggest the cocktail of the day. When he did this, we gave up, and I just headed to the till and paid, was much easier!

Once we'd finished dinner, we had another browse of the shops, checked out the Jungle Adventure area which housed 4 fully grown White Tigers. After walking past several displays of far less interesting animals, birds, hamsters, the usual boring stuff, we made it to the White Tigers. It was pretty cool to be able to see them so close, not quite as close as we'd have been able to get if they were in Phuket Zoo, but close enough. I could actually watch Tigers for hours, they're incredible animals, but eventually, after a bit of filming, Nicola dragged me away. I didn't need much persuading though, as she was dragging me to get a cocktail from one of the bars. 

After our delicious margarita's, our chosen drink of the summer I reckon, a delicious mix of Tequila, lime juice and sugar, with a sugar rimmed glass of course, we headed off for a bit more shopping and to play a few of the carnival games before making our way to the Elephant Theatre for the show. The show kicked off at 9 and we had pretty decent seats. We were on the second row of the first elevated area, bang in the middle, not bad, well worth the extra £4. 

The show itself was an interesting experience. Not quite the history of Kamala we were expecting, it played out more like a bible story. The show featured the Prince of Kamala, his 'magic' elephant, a lot of dancing, a drawf, lots of very well trained animals, but not a lot of story. It started with a narrator, but they quickly disappeared, and the rest was really down to your own interpretation, I have no idea how small children were supposed to follow the story. Other than the dodgy story, it was a very entertaining show though. The effects were good (other than the levitating Elephant, which as it left the stage, was exposed as just a mesh outline of an elephant), there was some very good trapeze work, the magic section in the middle was very good and the big finale with the fight scene and the dancing Elephants made for a fun ending. I'm glad we went, but I wouldn't really bother going again if we return to Phuket.

That's week 3 and our time at Floraville and Tiger Muay Thai over then. It's been an awesome 3 weeks, I couldn't have asked for more. We've done so much these last 3 weeks, trained Thailand's traditional martial art, had a photo's taken with a tiger, an orangutang and a baby monkey, visited Patong, did a workout in the hills of Phuket with views of a beautiful beach, did Go Ape high in the trees, Nicola got involved in the Elephant show, I got a traditional Bamboo tattoo, we've had pet lizards, a frog (which "scared the death" out of Nicola) and a snake and had the most fantastic time. I can't wait to get to the next part of our holiday and have some more fun :D Here are a few more piccies:

Us posing at the Fantasea Entrance

Us at the entrance again

The Kinaree Restaurant

Thailand's answer to the gollywog

Colourful display at FantaSea

FantaSea's Carp

Nic on the Zipline at Xtreme Adventure

The views from high up in the trees 

Sorry for the delay - Days 12, 13, 14.......

Sorry for the delay - Days 12, 13, 14.......

Apologies for the delay in updates, been a busy few days lots of things going on, so I'll just give you a brief walkthrough of what we've done since our last update. 

Wednesday was a fairly uneventful one in terms of the blog. We had yoga in the morning, and then went into the tattoo shop to 'discuss' me getting a tattoo done. This brief discussion turned from throwing a few ideas around, to writing a definitive design down and booking an appointment, for mid-day the following day. I was not expecting to book it and have it done so soon, and I'd not really had chance to build myself up to it, but that might have been a good thing. 

The rest of the day was spent in the usual way, training in the evening, then tea, skype and sleep, nothing major to report. We woke on Thursday morning at 11 to get ready to head down to the tattoo shop. After dragging myself out of bed and forcing down some nervous breakfast we headed down to the parlour, which, fortunately is located directly outside Tiger Muay Thai, so about 5 mins from the hotel.

Once we got there I was measured up, checked my design, had the stencil put on and we were away. I had opted to go with the more expensive, traditional method of tattooing, using a bamboo stick with several needles attached. It's a method of tattooing traditionally used by monks on Thai soldiers, with the tattoos designed as protection in battle. The bamboo method also has the advantage of healing very quickly, as the needles pierce the skin, not tear like a more commonly used tattoo gun. Another thing I'd read is that Bamboo tattooing is 90% less painful than machine tattooing, a piece of information that, once we'd begun was refuted by everybody in the shop, much to my dismay. It was one of the most painful things I've ever experienced, like having 120 stinging injections a minute. The areas where the artist had to put the detail in were the most painful, as the needles had to go so deep into the skin, it was not pleasant.

The painful bit had passed by this point!

The pain was 100% worth it though, I absolutely love my tattoo. It's another of those experiences that you're unlikely to get a chance to experience again, so to get tattoo'd, with the bamboo method in Thailand, by a Thai artist is something that will stick with me forever, literally. It's just a shame Nicola didn't enjoy the experience as much as I did. I thought I handled it like a baby, but she had to run out of the shop after 10 minutes as she thought she was going to pass out. I'd suggest it's put her off tattoo's for life, much to her Mum's relief I'd imagine! I'll just have to take her share for her ;)

Nicola
Wherever You Will Go

Admiring my new Muay Thai t-shirt

So that was 2 pretty exciting experiences in 1 week. Getting to have my picture taken with exotic animals 1 day, and a tattoo a few days later, not a bad effort all things considered, just could have done with squeezing a bungee jump and a sky dive into that week and it'd have been a perfect thrill-seeking week completed!

A relaxing late Thursday afternoon and Friday morning followed the painful experience of early Thursday, and allowed us to prepare ourselves for another experience, a night out in Patong. We'd visited Patong earlier in the holiday, and it certainly wasn't the highlight, but we were keen to go back and experience the nightlife. A fellow tattoo enthusiast in the tattoo shop we were in on Thursday told us that Patong didn't really kick off until 11pm, so we geared ourselves up for a long night. 

The night started with a little walk around the shops before deciding where we'd be eating, the Hard Rock Cafe. We'd checked out the menu briefly the last time we were in Patong, but weren't too impressed by the prices, but thought we'd go back and take another look. Turned out we'd just seen the specials section at the start and been put off, as the rest was fairly reasonable. 

We kicked things off with a cheeky Margarita, my cocktail favourite of the holiday, but insisted on a sugared glass, not the more popular salted rim. We also opted for the more expensive, 899baht version of the drink which meant we got to keep the Margarita glass at the end of our meal, to go with our Hurricane London ones. Then ordered a very tasty platter to start the meal, something I would come to regret when my monstrous double cheeseburger arrived. Once the platter had been devoured our mains arrived, and I was already struggling. My stomach just wasn't used to such mammoth portions, after mainly feasting on a diet of lighter noodle and pasta dishes throughout the holiday, so the burger didn't go down quite as nicely as I'd hoped. Overall, our Hard Rock experience was a very positive one though, and we walked away, large Hard Rock bag in hand very satisfied and proceeded to begin our bar crawl. 

The bar crawl begun with a trip to Scruffy Murphys, an Irish Bar, but I'm sure you could have guessed that! Murphys happened to have a very nice deal of 2 frozen Strawberry Daiquiris for 100thb, so Nicola helped herself to 4 of those, whilst I started with a Magners (couldn't turn down a cider, they're not easy to get out here!) before having 2 myself.

From here, it was to an area of Patong similar to a market, but full of small pop-up bars, many of which had dancing Thai girls parading themselves across the bar. We managed to find one that was a bit more reserved, with a few people simply sat at the bar drinking and chatting. After a drink each here we moved back towards the strip. It was around half 10 by this point, so the night was starting to really kick into gear.

As we got back onto the strip we were instantly offered the chance to partake in the viewing of a 'Ping Pong Show'. I'm still not 100% sure what goes on at one of these Ping Pong shows, as the 'menu' seems to have diversified beyond purely Ping Pong balls, but I can take a good guess, and I don't think it's something I am too keen to see. Talking of the menu, I have no idea what these poor girls were doing with these objects, but we were offered to see a Mouse Show, Balloon Show, Cigarette Show, as well as 20 or so others. We decided against seeing one in Patong, but it seems likely that we'll frequent one in Bangkok, just for the experience, god only knows what it'll be like!

We finally made our way through the Ping Pong advertisements and into another bar. Here, we took advantage of the Happy Hour deal and got ourselves 2 Long Island Ice Bulls, which is basically a Long Island Iced Tea but with Red Bull instead of Coke. If you're not sure what the drink contains, it's a 5 shot mix of white spirits; more specifically Vodka, Gin, Tequila, Triple Sec (Cointreau) and Rum, a potent enough combination in the UK where licensing laws dictate that they have to be 10ml measures, but in Thailand, it was a drink that went straight to our heads! That didn't stop us though, as we noticed the bar we were in sold Pimms. We'd not seen cider in Thailand thus far, let alone Pimms, so we couldn't leave this bar without sampling some. The bartender had to break the seal, and had no idea what the strange spirit was she was pouring, let alone what to serve it with. Luckily we told her to stick it with Lemonade, which she did, just nowhere near enough, it was strong as anything!

With our heads spinning, and stomachs beginning to give in to the potent mix of spirits and food we decided to hop in a taxi and go home. A bit of bartering and a 500thb taxi ride later we arrived home, slumped into bed and went to sleep, the end of a busy night!

I'll update the blog tomorrow with another big update which should cover the remaining few days I've missed! :)

I wanted to be left here, but Nic wouldn't let me

Enjoying a sip on my Cocktail

Nic posing with our fancy Cocktails

Hard Rock illuminations

The Video Unveiling - Day 11

The Video Unveiling - Day 11

Just a quick update to show off the video I promised in the blog last night. Hope you enjoy it :)

Edit: The video's been pulled due to the Coldplay song in the background, so I'm trying to get it back up on another site. Should be up tonight at some point :)

That Monkey Just Did A Wee on Me - Days 10 & 11

That Monkey Just Did A Wee on Me - Days 10 & 11

Day 10 was a fairly insignificant day in terms of excitement. I got up early for my first ever Yoga session, which was surprisingly enjoyable and difficult. I was expecting to be standing in a pose I wasn't flexible enough to do for a few minutes, but it was the complete opposite. It involved constant movement, and fairly simple, but straining poses one after another in a fluid movement. It was very good, and I'll definitely be going again.

The only other key event of the day was the long awaited appearance of the infamous Stick. I was honestly beginning to believe that the stick was a myth, and was an empty threat, but Monday proved to me that the stick did exist, and man did Head Trainer Dang know how to use it. The killer task at the end of every session is 3 rounds of moving around the whole matted area, on tip-toes throwing alternate knees, with the threat that if you stop, or walk, you face the wrath of the much talked about stick. On Monday someone finally broke Dang's rules. A chap affectionately known as Big Baby, a 6'9" Danish  powerhouse with 2 full sleeve tattoo's which almost meet in the middle of his chest was the first to feel the power of the stick. Big Baby must have only stopped for 2 paces, but that was enough for Dang. He instructed Big Baby to stand by the mirror, and called for the stick. Dang warmed up his shoulder, pulled his arm back as far as he could and unleashed the entirety of his force into Big Baby's arse. Big Baby grimaced, had a look at the damage in the mirror, and then appeared fine, I'd have been struggling to walk for a week!

That's about all that's worth documenting from Day 10, a day of training and tiredness, getting up at half 6 was not easy! Now, onto Day 11, a day with much more to talk about. Day 11 was due to start with Yoga again, but that wasn't happening for me, as a clash of knees in sparring on Monday was enough to put me out of action for the day. So, instead of another day at boot camp, we opted for a day at the Zoo!

Around mid-day we set off in the sun, at the start of a 2 and a half kilometre hike to  Phuket Zoo. It was sweaty work to say the least, and we were incredibly glad we took a bottle of water with us for the journey, as we definitely needed it! After around half an hour of walking we made it to the gates of the Zoo and a little bit of excitement kicked in. We paid our 500thb each and headed inside. The Zoo experience started slowly, we didn't want to get ourselves too excited too early, so did something light to begin with, which was have our photo's taken with a massive tiger. Nice relaxing start. For 200thb we took a couple of pictures together, with me holding the Tiger's head up and Nic holding it's tail, then swapped having individual photo's holding the Tiger's head. The poor tiger was obviously sedated, but even so, it's pretty nerve wracking being that close to something that could, if it wanted to, tear you limb from limb. Definitely something cool to say you've done though!

Dan and the Tiger

Nic's turn with the cute kitty

Us and the Tiger

Once we'd finished posing with one of natures most dangerous predators, we moved on to a slightly tamer section of the trip, with the monkey show soon to kick off. The monkey show was probably the most disappointing of the 3 shows we'd go on to see that day, but that's not in any way a negative, as the show was still very fun and definitely worth a watch. The show included a monkey riding a trike, doing some maths and having a little Basketball session, as well as the usual posing and dancing that comes with these kinds of monkey shows.

After a look around at some of the animals, with a good look at the alligators, camels, elephants (which weren't being kept in the nicest of conditions) and a whizz around the aquarium we grabbed a bite to eat. Our dinner turned out to be the most disappointing food we'd had so far in Thailand. Although, to be fair, you can't really expect much from a hot-dog, chicken nuggets  and chips. Once our food was eaten, but not enjoyed we moved on to the second show of the day, and a show which turned out to be one of the most exciting parts of the day for Nicola!

The elephant show was one we weren't really looking forward to after seeing the poor conditions the elephants were being kept in, but it turned out to be easily the best. Once in the arena the elephants seemed genuinely happy, and appeared to be enjoying the attention and cheers from the crowd. After a bit of messing around, a little dance, some music and a few stunts there was a shout-out for 4 volunteers. It took Nicola all of 20 seconds and she was in the middle of the arena. I was then left with a task of my own, juggling the photo taking and video filming as the 2 elephants, one adult and one baby proceeded to walk over the 4 volunteers tapping them on the bottom as they carefully wandered over. It was a real crowd pleaser, especially with the 4 members in the middle, Nicola was loving her 5 minutes of fame!

Elephant proceeds to pat Nicola's bottom

Elephant patting Nicola :)

Nicola congratulated on her brave and fantastic performance

Once the Elephant show had finished, we had just over an hour until the final show of the day, the Crocodile show, so we saw this as the perfect chance to claim ourselves a couple more photo opportunities. The first port of call was to the Orangutang area to get a picture with the cuddly, ginger primate. As soon as we sat down the Orangutang was immediately affectionate and slung his long, hairy arms around us. Once that photo was taken, it was straight into the arms folded pose, before it was made even cooler with the addition of some funky sunglasses. We then got individual cuddle photo's and a cheeky kiss before moving on to our next photo opportunity. It was an amazing experience to be able to get so close to an animal I have always loved, and to experience one that was so affectionate and clearly enjoyed human contact without the need for sedation was lovely. Here are a few piccies of us with our new friend:

Ooo, cheeky.

Nicola getting a cheeky smooch too

A cuddle from our new friend

Pretty cool

A hell of a lot cooler

After a few pretty cool pictures with Mr Orangutang we moved to an area a short distance away to meet a little monkey and have our picture taken with him. This didn't start amazingly, as soon as he began to settle in to Nicola's arms the little bastard decided it'd be a good time to have a wee, soaking Nicola's arms and my shorts. I think that was his way of saying Hello. Once we'd got over the initial teething problems we settled in to having our photo's done. We got a few together, a few holding him in our arms, a few with him on our shoulders and then with the little monkey on our heads. Other than the urine incident it was another nice encounter, especially considering we were a little nervous about it after seeing him have a panic attack earlier in the day after seeing another monkey. I'm guessing the other monkey it saw was some sort of mob boss that he owed money too, as that can be the only rational reason for the little terror to run away and howl like he did!

Our first baby, with built in wee function

Monkey standing on my head

Monkey on Nicola's head

Perched happily on my shoulder

Nicola nervously looks on, praying his bladder is now empty!

Once we'd had our photo's done, we had one last wander around, seeing the Ostriches, which, other than one, which I'm presuming is the big boss on site, had had it's feathers all but removed from it's back. It seemed that this loss of feathers had come from fights of the past, as the main, and most confident ostrich had only lost a few in the middle of it's back. We took another look at the alligators, and a quick look at a kangaroo before taking our seats ahead of the Crocodile show.

This was the one I was looking forward to most. I find crocodiles and alligators incredibly interesting. They're a real throwback to the Jurassic era, with their thick scales, and general appearance and I just find them fascinating. I have seen so many videos of supposed Crocodile tamers getting over confident and having their arms taken home by an angry crocodile or alligator, and I was interested to see if I'd be able to catch something similar on film myself. It seemed unlikely once we'd arrived at the arena however, as the Crocodiles seemed very dosile, and appeared to be heavily sedated, which sort of takes away from the danger and thrill of the act.

Once the trainer had finished a few routine stunts, dragging the croc's around, putting a 50baht note in one's mouth before sticking his head in another it was over. This was when I managed to get my hands on a croc, and managed to get a picture holding the tail of one of the smaller croc's. I was happy enough to do this, there was no risk of getting a hand bitten off, or getting gator rolled, but when the trainer offered me the chance to sit on one of the croc's for 300thb I immediately turned him down. I'm happy to get close to a tiger, or a cuddle an orangutang, but there's no way I was heading into a pit with 6 crocodiles, sedated or not. 

Me holding the croc

Nic had a go as well :)

That was it then, our day at the Zoo over with. We had gone in with low expectations, expecting to come away massively disappointed and depressed at the state some of the animals were being kept in, but in actual fact we found the experience on the main to be a positive one. Sure, some of the animals, such as the elephants shouldn't be in small areas, or chained up, but generally the animals are well looked after. Also, we were really buoyed by the fact that the elephants seemed to genuinely enjoy their time in the show, and seemed very well treated by the trainers. Phuket Zoo is unlike any Zoo I have ever been to, and probably ever will go to, but I'm so glad we went, as we did a few things I'm sure we'll look back on and be very glad we did. It's not everyday you can walk 20 minutes and get your photo taken with a tiger and an orangutang. Here are a few more pictures :)

An angry looking Alligator

Cute deer looking thing

The Messi of the Elephant world

Better at handstands than me

Pretty bird

What the hell is that thing? Turns out it's a Bearcat :/

Woop Woop Woop, this little fella loved making that noise

Another cute looking monkey :)

Check the blog early tomorrow and I should have made the compilation movie of the various shows, including Nicola's starring role in the Elephant production. I'm sure you're looking forward to that!