Tigers, snakes and caves

My flight to London has been delayed and now I am trapped in Bangkok until early tomorrow morning. Bleh.

In the time that has passed since the last post, I have seen and patted some tigers, seen a snake show and had one wrapped around my neck and I have gone into a massive (to me) cave system that has some pretty special legends attached to them.

I miss home terribly. It's strange, but adventuring is quite a lonely sport. I don't regret leaving, but right now a tube of vegemite is one of my favourite possessions.

Back to the tigers. They were wonderful. Soft, but hard underneath all that fur. I got to lay my head down on the belly of one and my heart stepped up it's pace until I could feel the blood thumping through my head. I was terrified. But that was nothing compared to having a huge python wrapped around my neck. It's massive head was a little too close to my face for comfort - although I did manage to get a good photo of it. From that, nobody would know that I was actually shaking like a leaf. At one stage the snake handlers reached into the snake 'box' and flung one straight at me (I was an obvious choice as I was clearly the most frightened). Naturally, I screamed and went mental only to find them all laughing at me, and a piece of rope on the ground. I am such an easy target sometimes.

The caves at Chiang Dao were very impressive. My imagination went wild down there. There were random passages, bats, and little alters all over the place. Water dripped down everywhere, and the smell of the guide's lamp made it all the more suffocating. It was fantastic and a very good way to confront a lot of my fears. The dark, small places and being underground.

Lastly, I finally managed to see a fortune teller. She told me some things that I was happy with, and other things that I am VERY unhappy about. I don't think that people should live their lives by things like that, but it can be a good reminder of what to avoid. Hopefully I'll manage to see one fortune teller and see one cave system in every country.