The biggest fear is death👿
Jim Morrison says "Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.”
This is a story about 5 frnds on a trip which they will never forget in their lives.
In the midst of quarter life crisis which I was having, on a boring Sunday afternoon me and my roommate thought of a plan. We wanted to do something thrilling, something which would excite us to travel. After a lot of thought, we singled down the idea to see the tigers. We had heard that there is a tiger temple in Thailand where you can see and touch a tiger. Well I am sure, just the thought of being in close proximity with the wild beast would make people shit in their pants.
But, I was quite fascinated by tigers since childhood, I had seen the huge heads of tigers and lions which were on display in the Kolhapur palace when I was a 7. Its intriguing that even after so many decades the dead head looked feirce as they might just get back to life and pounce on you. The fear of getting killed by a tiger is inevitably scary.
It all sounded unreal till we finally landed in Bangkok. The city awaited us with numerous LOL moments. To begin with we had booked our hotel online and as we all were on a weeks vacation across thailand so nobody checked emails. And supposedly the hotel staff had informed us about our cancellation on email, which was a shocker for us in an unkown city. Hence, we had no place to stay for the night.
We were pissed at the staff so decided not to stay there even when they were offering us a fresh booking with some extra fee. We walked out very confident at 8pm on a Sunday night in Bangkok hoping for a better welcome. Two of us went out to search for a cab, and surprisingly not a single taxi driver understood english. And the place was so opposite of what is shown in movies, the city was dead, shops close at 9, malls were closed on a Sunday night. We were wondering are we really in Bangkok. We heard the night life was great but there was no life in that night. Driving in taxis from here and there all through Bangkok the dialogue from "Jab we met" came to my mind "Babaji please iss raat ko boring banado. aur koi fun nahi chahiye" we had a laugh riot after this. Surprisingly the taxi driver smiled at us and said ohhh very Happy in Bangkok, ironically that was the only English he knew. We had to use the sign language to explain him to take us to some decent hotel. After running through various cafes for searching another hotel and going to many of the hotels we found one kind receptionist who took us at 11 pm in the night in the hotel without prior booking.
After a sigh of relief we got the rooms. we had only one more day left in Bangkok, when we can visit the Tiger temple. The one dream for which we had visited Thailand. (no we were not interested in pattaya as what it is famous for). The receptionist arranged a car for us to go to Tiger temple. Well after a series of comedy of errors we had finally found a place to settle for the night and we were closer to meeting the tigers.
Early next morning we began the most awaited road trip to hug the tigers. Super-excited as we were, we started the trip, it is supposed to be a 4 hrs journey from Bangkok. As we moved out of the city, the LOL moments did not leave us. The taxi driver did not know the way, he faked it before and was constantly on call with somebody for directions. To top it off he also did not understand english at all. I was like are u kidding me!!! not again....
There is a fixed time when visitors are allowed in Tiger temple we were already worried as we did not want to miss it after coming so close. I sat in the front seat as we were 5 people and we Could not get a bigger taxi we had to adjust in the small car. And you know how great Indians are to adjust in space. So I being the healthy one was chosen to sit in the front seat. And I unwillingly became the only one who could communicate with the driver obviously in the dumb charade's way... It was a long journey. We usually in the holiday mood were singing and joking around in the cab. I asked the driver looking at the watch how much time to reach he says 30 min. We shouted with joy as we saw the destination coming closer. After 45 min I again asked how much time pointing at the watch, he started laughing . We all were like ohh no we are lost. He stopped in a secluded area where we cud just see one shop, he asked the fellow directions and moved on. The tension grew... Will we be able to make it or not. Even the sign boards in Thailand were not in English uhhhhhh. The road seem to be endless with only the highway and nothing on the sides. After a while he took a turn where we could see a hill and on the hill top was a temple.... We cheered with joy. We all rushed out in search of tigers. Like they were going to roam around like dogs in park. I climbed a flight of stairs eager and anxious, entered the temple with still no sign of a tiger. I was skeptical, like tigers should roar right....but there was no sound. It was very peaceful there.I asked a tourist where are the tigers, she laughed at me and went away. One of my friends asked the tour guide she told us this is just a tiger temple but without tigers the one which we were looking for is further away. Finally we got the directions the guide explained the driver and we were off again on deserted roads. Just hoping to reach on time, we all had our fingers crossed. Finally we saw a board of tiger temple, we rushed in. The view was mind-boggling. In the natural habitat of trees there they were 12 tigers spread across the place. Each tiger had a caretaker, who instructed us "how to be close to a real tiger without offending him". The tigers were roaring, playing around with their caretakers basically coolly lazing around. It was definitely mesmerizing. We get to touch the tiger, click pictures and watch him closely. The carnivores teeth definitely gives you shivers. In the scorching heat we were there for about 3 hours enjoying the view of the gigantic beast. Finally our trip was successful. It was totally worth it. The dialogue from the movie Hangover-2 "Bangkok almost had us." was quite apt for our stint.
This is a story about 5 frnds on a trip which they will never forget in their lives.
In the midst of quarter life crisis which I was having, on a boring Sunday afternoon me and my roommate thought of a plan. We wanted to do something thrilling, something which would excite us to travel. After a lot of thought, we singled down the idea to see the tigers. We had heard that there is a tiger temple in Thailand where you can see and touch a tiger. Well I am sure, just the thought of being in close proximity with the wild beast would make people shit in their pants.
But, I was quite fascinated by tigers since childhood, I had seen the huge heads of tigers and lions which were on display in the Kolhapur palace when I was a 7. Its intriguing that even after so many decades the dead head looked feirce as they might just get back to life and pounce on you. The fear of getting killed by a tiger is inevitably scary.
It all sounded unreal till we finally landed in Bangkok. The city awaited us with numerous LOL moments. To begin with we had booked our hotel online and as we all were on a weeks vacation across thailand so nobody checked emails. And supposedly the hotel staff had informed us about our cancellation on email, which was a shocker for us in an unkown city. Hence, we had no place to stay for the night.
We were pissed at the staff so decided not to stay there even when they were offering us a fresh booking with some extra fee. We walked out very confident at 8pm on a Sunday night in Bangkok hoping for a better welcome. Two of us went out to search for a cab, and surprisingly not a single taxi driver understood english. And the place was so opposite of what is shown in movies, the city was dead, shops close at 9, malls were closed on a Sunday night. We were wondering are we really in Bangkok. We heard the night life was great but there was no life in that night. Driving in taxis from here and there all through Bangkok the dialogue from "Jab we met" came to my mind "Babaji please iss raat ko boring banado. aur koi fun nahi chahiye" we had a laugh riot after this. Surprisingly the taxi driver smiled at us and said ohhh very Happy in Bangkok, ironically that was the only English he knew. We had to use the sign language to explain him to take us to some decent hotel. After running through various cafes for searching another hotel and going to many of the hotels we found one kind receptionist who took us at 11 pm in the night in the hotel without prior booking.
After a sigh of relief we got the rooms. we had only one more day left in Bangkok, when we can visit the Tiger temple. The one dream for which we had visited Thailand. (no we were not interested in pattaya as what it is famous for). The receptionist arranged a car for us to go to Tiger temple. Well after a series of comedy of errors we had finally found a place to settle for the night and we were closer to meeting the tigers.
Early next morning we began the most awaited road trip to hug the tigers. Super-excited as we were, we started the trip, it is supposed to be a 4 hrs journey from Bangkok. As we moved out of the city, the LOL moments did not leave us. The taxi driver did not know the way, he faked it before and was constantly on call with somebody for directions. To top it off he also did not understand english at all. I was like are u kidding me!!! not again....
There is a fixed time when visitors are allowed in Tiger temple we were already worried as we did not want to miss it after coming so close. I sat in the front seat as we were 5 people and we Could not get a bigger taxi we had to adjust in the small car. And you know how great Indians are to adjust in space. So I being the healthy one was chosen to sit in the front seat. And I unwillingly became the only one who could communicate with the driver obviously in the dumb charade's way... It was a long journey. We usually in the holiday mood were singing and joking around in the cab. I asked the driver looking at the watch how much time to reach he says 30 min. We shouted with joy as we saw the destination coming closer. After 45 min I again asked how much time pointing at the watch, he started laughing . We all were like ohh no we are lost. He stopped in a secluded area where we cud just see one shop, he asked the fellow directions and moved on. The tension grew... Will we be able to make it or not. Even the sign boards in Thailand were not in English uhhhhhh. The road seem to be endless with only the highway and nothing on the sides. After a while he took a turn where we could see a hill and on the hill top was a temple.... We cheered with joy. We all rushed out in search of tigers. Like they were going to roam around like dogs in park. I climbed a flight of stairs eager and anxious, entered the temple with still no sign of a tiger. I was skeptical, like tigers should roar right....but there was no sound. It was very peaceful there.I asked a tourist where are the tigers, she laughed at me and went away. One of my friends asked the tour guide she told us this is just a tiger temple but without tigers the one which we were looking for is further away. Finally we got the directions the guide explained the driver and we were off again on deserted roads. Just hoping to reach on time, we all had our fingers crossed. Finally we saw a board of tiger temple, we rushed in. The view was mind-boggling. In the natural habitat of trees there they were 12 tigers spread across the place. Each tiger had a caretaker, who instructed us "how to be close to a real tiger without offending him". The tigers were roaring, playing around with their caretakers basically coolly lazing around. It was definitely mesmerizing. We get to touch the tiger, click pictures and watch him closely. The carnivores teeth definitely gives you shivers. In the scorching heat we were there for about 3 hours enjoying the view of the gigantic beast. Finally our trip was successful. It was totally worth it. The dialogue from the movie Hangover-2 "Bangkok almost had us." was quite apt for our stint.
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