Tiger Kingdom

a tiger

Have you ever pet a tiger? Well I have. It happened on my 12^th birthday on June 2014, in Phuket, Thailand.

A 30-minute drive in our rental car and we arrived at our destination, Tiger Kingdom. I was astonished by how many cars were parked in the parking lot. I suspected there wasn’t going to be many, for it was low season. There was such an enormous amount of cars in fact; we had a bit of trouble finding a parking spot.

When we entered Tiger Kingdom we saw that it was packed with tourists. There was a lot of racket from all of the people inside the building talking in their different languages. After looking at the sizes of the tigers on computer screens for a small amount of time, we bought our tickets for the size smallest. Any larger size tiger you would have to be 15 years old.

The size smallest was quite small, but they were not babies. They were at least 1 – 2 years old and were about the size of me. When we got our tickets, we headed down to the space where the tigers were held and waited for our turn. The cage for smallest had a smooth floor and little wooden fences. There was

no mess because the trainers cleaned everything up.

Me cuddling with our tiger

Joshua, James and I with our tiger

 While we were waiting for our turn, we took pictures of ourselves. When it was time for us to come in, we read the rules, washed our hands, put on some sandals (we couldn’t wear our shoes inside the cage), and entered. I was amazed by how domesticated all the tigers were. The tiger we got was very calm and was absolutely OK with us petting him. I got to lie with, cuddle, and pet him a lot. He especially liked it when my dad rubbed his belly. He rolled around and purred like it was very comfortable. We got a lot of good pictures with him. After about thirty minutes we had to leave. I was unhappy to leave my friend but I felt my birthday present was one of the best.

 When we left the tiger we were petting, we instantly started washing our hands. While that was happening some of the smallest tigers started play fighting together. They were rolling around and growling. After that we looked at the other tigers.

Smallest

Mom and I with our tiger

Small was a bit bigger then the Smallest by about 1^1/2 of a foot and were 2 – 3 years old. The Mediums were a bit smaller then my dad and the big were bigger than him. Those large tigers had big grassy terrains with a pool unlike the smallest who has the same habitat as the small. There were people petting the bigs and it was pretty funny because the Thai people were very small compared to the big tigers. After we finished looking at all the tigers we went out of the tiger zone and into the gift shop. In the gift shop I looked at some things and decided on getting a cool and realistic tiger t–shirt. When we left we took one last picture in front of a sign with my new shirt.

Thanks for reading   Jacob