So another of my dear friends decided to come join us on our crazy SE Asia adventure, so we got to have 2 friends on the trip.... for like 8 hours. Yay!

So the rest of Bangkok was happy/sad. Happy because Brittany came, but said because Brent left. And because of our trip to the Sriracha Zoo.

Both Brittany and Brent reallllly wanted to pet a tiger while they were in Thailand, so we found a place they could a bit outside Bangkok. It was called Sriracha Zoo, and to get there you had to hire a driver and drive for about an hour and a half.

Although I'm glad Brent and Brittany got to cross something off their bucket list, it was incredibly sad to see animals treated so poorly (and expensive but YOLO or carpe diem or you can't take it with you right?).


We all kept thinking Brent and the driver were holding hands
The first sign this place was sketchy was that this statue greeted us. I actually have no words for it.

Then we went to the “elephant show” for about 10 seconds until I started to cry because they had horrible sharp poker things to 'guide' the elephants.



Another sign this place was bad news was this. You could pay to shoot a BB gun at containers of meat above tigers. And while it was kinda fun to watch them fight a bit over it, I kept wondering what happened to all the missed shot BBs and if anyone ever hurt one of the tigers with them. 

Anyway, after that we went and took pictures feeding baby tigers. They were pretty awesome and cute and I was excited and terrified all at the same time. They didn't name the tigers (wah wah) so I decided mine was named Tony.  



I got to pet the biggest one

Then Brent and Brittany went and got pictures with an adult tiger.  



Shere Khan here was looking to eat somebody - except that he was limping around the saddest concrete enclosure you ever saw.

Brent tried to feed the Crocodiles they had there, but the Crocs just weren't interested in the dangling chicken carcass.  



Chad is really strong

I took a picture of this little guy because I felt bad he was being ignored by everyone else
 Finally we went to the tiger show. It was a mixture of fun and sad. My feelings were very mixed... and honestly more than once I thought a few of them were like “yep had enough I'm gonna eat this guy now”. I was rooting for them to the entire time.
See the tiger not on his perch? He was sending the guy mad shade and acting like "I'll get on that when I'm good and ready" 


After that adventure Brent left us to return to boring old Utah. So because the boys were again outnumbered we went shopping. There is a HUGE weekend market in Bangkok with at least a billion vendors and it was a lot of fun to walk around and see everything. We almost bought a $250 leather weekend bag... but decided it might not be the best investment at this time.

Incidently this was the best Thai Ice Tea we had there

We maybe wandered into another protest sight....
 After all that shopping it was time to head to our overnight train (or as Chad and I liked to call it our Midnight Train to Georgia... even though our doing so probably made Brittany second guess her decision to come. Also, follow that link, you won't regret it.)

Did I mention Brittany came after having knee surgery so she was brace and caned up most the trip?

Don't we look like seasoned backpakers?
 So a fun thing happened while we were at the train station. We kept trying to board our train compartment, but people kept saying no, which was hard to understand since, you know, we don't speak Thai. Then, while we are on the platform the train leaves. Just leaves us and the last few cars stranded at the train station... we start freaking out because our gimpy friend wouldn't be able to run and hop on, but some Thai people on the platform try to charade to us that it's okay and not to worry. About 10 minutes later it comes back and we are able to board. We assume they had to change a car out, but really we have no idea what happened. 


We got sleeper beds and it was pretty great. They are significantly better than China trains. Do you see how big that seat is? It's like twice the size of China train seats. 

This little old lady was sitting across from me and her husband was across from Brittany, we were trying to offer to switch but she didn't want to... I think she thought we would make her climb up to the top bed  if she switched.

Our ladder to the top bunk, which folded down quite lovely like from the ceiling

Our train compartment guy... super nice happy guy