Some samples from recent trip to Thailand

[sury]

At a tiger park in Phuket. I am condoning the practice of keeping wild animals in captivity
but these are reared from the day they were born to be with humans.



This one was one of the Oops shots I got. What I mean is that there is a strict rule about being
in front of these tigers. The trainers ask you to stay behind the animals and never face them,
for obvious reasons. There were three sleeping as seen in the first shot and all the trainers and
my wife were in front and stayed back taking the shots and this one decides to open her eyes and
stares at me. I was so engrossed that I managed couple of shots when I realized my mistake. I had
to manage not to run towards the trainers. Another rule: Do not make sudden moves.

[Birma]

you are a brave, brave man Sury!

[John David Cubit]

And aren't there other rules, like:
1. Don't sit on the tigers' tails.
2. Don't sit on the tigers' feet.
3. No matter how much you love tigers, don't rub your thigh on their rear-ends.
?

[aster]

That certainly isn't a shaky smile, Sury. You look pretty happy in a 'tigers' pet' kind of way.

When I was imagining photos, I certainly wasn't expecting yours as an endangered human specimen but all is well that ends well...

By the way, those tigers are gigantic and beautiful; nice face.


Thanks for sharing,

Yildiz

[sury]

Yildiz,
Those were what they call as "medium" size tigers, the small being "cubs" and the full grown is shown below too.
By the way, I thought this sign was redundant but soon realized we are too dumb to follow rules.



A "small" tiger or a cub.



A big tiger (fully grown)

[Birma]

More great whiskers and stripes

[Greg Beetham]

Good one Sury, did you take one home?
Greg
Ps I’m sure you are aware that Tigers have only one evolutionary function…to be a carnivore, you are braver then me that’s for sure.

[sury]

Yes, Andy. Greg, now I am aware of the purpose of the tigers. A tad too late for me.
It was an exhilarating experience albeit tad nerve wrecking.
There are about five floating restaurants between Phuket (main island) and the island where our
resort was (Kao Maphrao or Coconut Island). We were on one of them called Lobster. There are
about 20 or so the openings you see at lower left about 3 meters on a side which contained different
fresh catch for you to select your dinner.

Lobster Restaurant


My dinner



Three other restaurants. Fourth one was out to the right of the frame.

[Dr. Harout]

Bee Gees' song "Stayin' alive" keeps ringing in my ears...
After your "friendly meeting" with the striped ones, I'm sure you needed urgently a bathroom, and there did you find what you were looking for? (sorry, couldn't resist)

[sury]

Doc. it was not that bad, though the idea of having the change over undergarments did cross my mind couple of
times. Especially when I was all by myself "facing" the big cat and she decided to open her eyes and check me out.

Continuing with the theme, we had a trek in the jungle on elephant.



My wife suffers from serious Ophidiophobia points me to the very thing. It was lying still and the next
moment dashes off with a frog (I think) in its mouth.



That evening I tried to capture the lightening bolt without much success. The distant sky was ligthening
lit. I was sitting on the dock waiting for the lightening to strike twice/thrice....




Sury

[Birma]

Love the elephants and snake shots Sury. At least the snake was trying to make an exit, unlike the tigers!

[sury]

Andy, you were right. But the missus was scared stiff that the Elephant we were on would
panic.

A street vendor in Paton Beach, Phuket.



A floating merchant, Bangkok.



The ubiquitous Tuk-tuk in Bangkok.

[Greg Beetham]

Sury the photos are interesting, the Elephant shot, the snake, the Tuk-tuk and street scenes but I’m trying to work out what’s going on with the merchant photo, there seems to be a second boat behind the front one but then the pier seems to overlap that somehow, check the pillar just behind the merchant which is over the top of the figure? in red, the pillar seems to be on this side of the other boat or something and looks strange to my eye, like I say I can’t figure out what’s happening there.
Greg
Ps the Painted Rock Lobster you had for dinner could have come from here, there is a live export market to SE Asia for those.

[sury]

Greg,
Here is the crop of the photo and another one which hopefully provides clarity. Your eyes not deceiving you and what you perceived was indeed reality.

[Dusty]

Again the demands of real life keep me from here for a quite a while.

I love the shots, Sury, esp. the tigers. I would love to do that some day!

Dusty