I’m quite suspicious to be talking about the Tiger Kingdom because of my passion for cats and my persistence in thinking that tigers are just “a little bigger” cats, so it was my desire for a long time to visit a place like this.
I’m glad to know that this place transmits the idea that the tigers are not drugged, like it happens in Tiger Temple, for example, but instead they are raised since little babies surrounded by humans and they get used to us, and above all they are very well fed, which obviously is important! We hope for it to be this way. Judging by the level of agitation and playfulness among the felines, they really don’t seem to be.
We caught a Tuk-Tuk in the center of Chiang Mai and went straight to Tiger kingdom, rested and with the Tuk-Tuk waiting for us, we entered quickly in order not to lose any time (the round trip plus the waiting time cost around 500 THB – around 12.5€). It is advisable for you to negotiate the price always taking in account the round trip because the Tiger Kingdom is a bit far away from the center and it will not be easy to find a transport back.
At the entrance we are questioned about what we’ll want to see: smallest/small/medium/big.
We didn’t want the huge, but we didn’t want the newborns either, so we opted for the small, if you desire so you can see all of them, of course that will be more expensive (the prices are around 20/25€ for category) like we didn’t have much time, we chose just one.
We thought small would be small, not a baby, but small, but we were wrong!
The tigers of this category had between 6 to 10 months and were huge, like you can see in the pictures.
But even so it was incredible… We entered a bit sacred (João more than myself, but of course he’ll say it was just “respect”) after being given the instructions and always accompanied by one of the handlers. To our ticket we associated the photography package, with the presence of a photographer and in the end a CD with a series of photographs (the talent of the photographer is an all different question).
Honestly I don’t know what more to tell you, because it is something you feel intensely, see the pictures and you’ll understand for sure that I LOVED IT!
Tiger Kingdom
51/1 Moo 7 | Rim Tai, Mae Rim – Chiang Mai
Text: Cíntia Oliveira | Flavors & Senses in Thailand with the support of Emirates.
