Dead computer....

And on my third day here no less!

Well, I guess this is a chance for me to learn how to live without it for a little bit. A lesson I'm not too keen on learning to tell you the truth.

Anyhow. Today is my day off, and I'm currently in Kanchanaburi where I'm enjoying different kinds of food (like chicken wings, mmmm), a nice bed and a shower that works properly. The only thing missing down here is the tigers really. And for my next day off there is a good chance I'll just stay at the temple and play tourist for the day. Get some tiger time, some good photos and just enjoy.

Up to now the experience of the tiger temple has been pretty much the same as last year, the biggest difference being some new people. And they all seem like nice people so all the better.

The cubs we walk to the sala this year are 4-6 months, while last year we had 2 month olds. These guys are a little bit more action, a little easier to walk and of course a little bigger. And I'm enjoying it alot!!

The tourists are mostly the same as last year as well. A lot of nice people, some stupid people and some people who never should have been there in the first place. But it's their choice I guess, so I'll just try to focus on the nice ones.

This blog will probably be updated whenever I have internet access, which might be at random times from now on. Fingers crossed for getting the computer to work again!

The night it rained....

So at 6.15 this evening we were al starting to think that we might not be going to meditation tonight, due to some unusually heavy rain. About fem minutes later we had that pretty solidly confirmed as the girls house started to flood.

No kidding.

The water had allready fillet the lowered part of the floor in front of the bathrooms, and started to run over the edge onto the floor of the commonroom. Fast. And from the commonroom..? Into our bedrooms of course!

I did go up to the boys house to see if I could find another squiggy, and ended up wading through water up to my knees. I had to hold on to the railing as I climed the stairs, the flow was so strong! And for this effort I didn't even get a squiggy-thingy...

So, with one squiggy-thingy, two brooms and eight hands we started trying to divert the water from our bedrooms an onto the other side of the kuti so that it could flow out. Now, almost three hours later, we're finally ready to go to bed! Our backpacks were on the floor and are of course wet on the bottom. As is pretty much everything else that we're on the floor in our room, but so far it seems that nothing is ruined.

I am now finally tucked into my mosquito net, and very ready for some well deserved sleep! Crossing my fingers for no more rain during the night....!

First day (again)

So, today was my first real day back. And it does feel like I never even left, and I LOVE it! The tigers from last year are a lot bigger of course, and I don't yet know the ones that are small now, but except from that this could just as easily have been July 2010.

The breakfast this morning consisted of rice and chili sauce, with a small bag of vegetables and pork on the side. And of course - the mandatory watermelon for dessert. The chili sauce was just as good as last year, and my stomach was just as angry at me afterwards as it was last year. At breakfast I got to spend a lot of time with a real cutie, Way Ha II. Not sure how old he is, but he is a real sweet little guy, so hoping to get to know him a little better.

My job today after breakfast was cleaning behind the cages. All though it's kinda messy and smelly, I actually quite like it. It gives you a lot of face time with the bigger tigers, which I definetly need after being away for so long. Hard to remember names as faces!

I spent enrichment watching some of the bigger tigers playing outside (among others, Happy and Money from "our" babies last year), and then cuddling the month olds before having some lunch at noodle town.

This afternoon was also my first time back in the canyon, and even though crowd control can be a bitch I loved it! It is soo good to be back.

Right now it's about 5.30pm, which means I've allready had a shower, changed into clean clothes and just waiting for it to be time to go to meditation. Last night me and Tine didn't have to do meditation because of all the organizing and unpacking we had to do, so that will be another seconds first today. And I'm actually looking forward to it. :)

Finishing off with some pics of our bathroom/shower. Enjoy!

Getting there

So... Finally, we're here! It definetly took a while.

First, I had to finish my exam of course. Forty-something questions about marine ecology - not fun, but I did finish it. And had time left over to say goodbye to some friends and run around like beheaded chicken at home. Good for me!

I allmost fell asleep on the bus to the airport, and pretty much died of boredom when I finally got there. As always, I had around two hours of waiting before I could get on my flight. I need to learn about getting there just in time some time soon....

Flight to Amsterdam was good, and the run through Schiphol wasn't too bad either. I got to the gate just as it changed from Boarding to Gate Closing, which at least meant less waiting time in this particular airport.

The flight started out pretty good, but as we got to around Afganhistan we hit an area with some awful turbulence! I do have this dream about travelling to Afganhistan, but travelling over it was definetly not that nice this time. Luckily, the plane had no problem handling this turbulence - like always - and I got to Bangkok with time to spare.

Afte a short wait for Tine at the airport, we finally got in a taxi headed for Kanchanaburi. Both of us pretty tired, so we ended up falling asleep on the way. Finding a room at the Jolly Frog was no problem, and we even got one with AC. Luxury! Exept from getting a room, we spent our nuight in Kanchan by doing some shopping at Tesco, getting some food at One More Bar and a peeerfectly relaxing foot massage at one of the massage places.

Which brings us to today. We got up around 7 am, headed out for some breakfast, phone cards and other neccecities. We also booked a ride to the temple - which ended up being a scooter with a side cart. That was definetly an interesting ride - approximately an hour in this little cart, with two huge backpacks, two small ones, a matress and a variety of other small bags. But again - we did get here, and so did all our stuff!

And now I'm done with another first day at the temple, and I'm allready enjoying it soo much! More about that later. :)

Counting down

Two more days. TWO! Today is Sunday, which means that in less than 48 hours I'll have finished my exam and will be on a plane headed for Amsterdam. Yes - that does give me butterflies!

I've finished packing (I think?), and I have a list of some last minute things I need to add to my carry on. Should mean I'm not going to forget anything essensial this time either, but you never know. The good thing is that Thailand is pretty cheap, and you can find pretty much anything you need at either Tesco Lotus or at one of the many markets. So.. Fingers crossed for no larger emergencies.

I should be arriving at Suvarnabhumi Airport sometime before 1pm local time on wednesday, which means somewhere around 7am Norwegain time. I've allready booked a car to come pick me up so that I don't lose too much time getting to Kanchanaburi. After all, I have quite a list of stuff to get when I finally get there - such as a mosquito net and a matress, which are things I'm not very interested in being without even for a week.

Another thing is that my Norwegian friend, Tine, will arrive some hours ahead of me and I'm really looking forward to start showing her the wonder that is Kanchanaburi! Last year I didn't know a single soul before going to the temple, and this year I'm lucky enough to share the month with a good friend! Of course, this time around I'm super excited to come back to all the awesome people at the tiger temple as well.

And if that wasn't enough... After Tine and I finish our month at the temple, we will be joined by June - another past tiger temple volunteer and travelling wizz extraordinaire!

The three of us will head to Ayutthaya first, then further on to Chiang Mai before heading south to Phi Phi Islands for some nice long days in the sun. Tine will be heading home on July 17, which gives me and June another two weeks to explore southern Thailand and hopefully some parts of Cambodia as well. We haven't planned too much just yet - which is some of the fun of backpacking, but we have booked our flights from Chiang Mai to Phuket, just to be sure we get the flight we want and don't end up stuck in the north for too long.

Sooo.. That's about it for now. I'll try to update my blog as much as possible, and for anyone interested in reading more, Tine and June will be blogging as well.

June: http://adventuresofjune2.blogspot.com/

Tine: http://tinebloggis.blogspot.com/

The times they are a-changin'...

By popular demand (by which I mean a couple of people who've asked me why I don't blog in english), my blog from this year's stay at the tiger temple will be in english.

That way I can refer more people to it when they ask about my experiences, and I won't have to do separate updates in english. Win-win I hope!

So, today is Saturday, which means there's now only TEN days left 'til I'm on a plane headed for Bangkok. I have an exam that same day - so no doubt about that being the most stressful day I've had in a while.... Still, pretty sure it'll be worth it and more. After all, there are tigers and travelling involved!

For now I need to get back to studying, packing and planning, but in about twelve days this blog will hopefully once again be full of tigers, monks and Thailand fun!

Vår!

Deilig deilig deilig!

Endelig er det april, og jammen virker det som om april blir en vårmåned allikevel - det så jo ikke akkurat lovende ut i slutten av mars!

I tillegg er det nå kun to måneder igjen til jeg på nytt er hos tigerene i Kanchanaburi, noe jeg gleder meg helt voldsomt til! Babyene mine har blitt store, nye babyer har kommet til og noen pusekatter har forlatt oss siden sist. Det er trist at den flotte leoparden Sepawan nå er borte, men heldigvis har bjørnene fått hennes gamle bur og jeg gleder meg til å se dem i et bedre miljø.

Ellers har jo dette vært en vår med svært mange forandringer. Jeg er blitt singel, og er i ferd med å flytte inn i kollektiv med en venninne og hennes samboer. Spennende, og jeg håper det blir gøy når vi bare kommer oss i orden! :) Sånn alt i alt blir det et helt nytt liv fra nå av, og jeg prøver å gjøre det så positivt som mulig. To måneder i Asia i sommer skal nok helt klart klare å hjelpe til med den positivt biten, spesielt siden jeg skal reise med to supre venninner! Gleder meg!

Sånn ellers så har jeg vært flink det siste halve året, og har fått betalt i -6kg på vekta. Deilig å være litt slankere før sommer og bikinisesong, så nå trenger jeg bare en ny smoking hot bikini til lange dager på strendene i Sør Thailand!