A Trip to Chiang Mai’s Tiger Kingdom

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We step out of our hostel and peer down the road looking for either a tuk-tuk or a songthaew. There’s nothing in site, but we both know that within the next sixty seconds there will be a rash of them flying down our street. As expected a songthaew pulls up and I ask the driver how much to Tiger Kingdom? He replies, “500 baht.” I start to walk away in disgust knowing there’s no way in hell a 10km (6 mile) ride from downtown to Tiger Kingdom costs 500 baht ($16.04 USD). Not only do I know that he’s trying to scam us due to being in Thailand for a few weeks now and seeing this happen on a daily basis but little does he know unlike many tourists I’ve already done my research and I know I can get there for a mere 200baht ($6.41 USD).

Learn to walk away

As usual, walking away always does the trick here in Thailand. Within seconds he shouts “Okay, 300 baht”, but $6 off isn’t enough for me. I shoot back, 200 baht or nothing. He says… “Okay!”. Within 30 seconds the price went from $16.41 to $6.41. Can you say… Chaaaa-ching! For 200 baht, he’s not only going to take us to the Tiger Kingdom, but he’s also going to wait there until we’re done and bring us back as well. Now, that’s a deal!

We jump in the back of this modified red pickup and we’re off to the kingdom. The Kingdom of Tigers that is. A half hour later we arrive, we enter the lobby with a sense that we might have just entered Thailands biggest tourist trap and that we did. Tourists from young to old are running around peering into the heavily covered area out back where all of the tigers reside.

Since the Tiger Kingdom prices and rates seem to be tough to find, I thought that I would give you an idea on what we spent while there. Here goes…

The Real Deal

There are 4 “tiger rooms”. Newborns (0-2 months) which they did not have at the time. The smallest (2-5 months), the medium (6-9 months), and the largest cats (10-20 months). Let’s face it, the staff at TK are very aware that most people want to see the smallest cubs (2-5 months) due to the fact that they are seemingly the most “family oriented” if you know what I mean. Especially that the newborns aren’t available at the moment.

Prices:

You can choose to spend 15 minutes in each room a la carte for 520 baht ($16.68 USD), or you can purchase a package that will allow you to see 2 rooms, 3 rooms, or all 4 rooms. We chose the 3 room package for 1270 baht ($40.74) plus the photo package for 150 baht/pp ($4.81). The scoop is that you only get 10 minutes in the smallest tiger room, and 15 minutes in each of the bigger tiger rooms so if you plan on taking photos, you can imagine that your time will burn pretty fast and once again TK knows this and they capitalize on it by offering to take the photos for you, of course!

The price for 80-100 professional photos on a CD is 300 baht ($9.62 USD). The worst part is that the 300 baht is PER ROOM! Liz really wanted to get photos of the smallest tiger room so we decided that we would purchase a CD for both of us in the smallest tiger room for 300 baht. The staff agreed that because we were there together that they would take photos of both of us in the room on one CD, which was nice considering I was expecting to have to purchase two separate CD’s. I decided that I would bring my tripod into the bigger cat rooms and film and photograph on my own as well so thats exactly what I did and the staff had no problem with me setting up my camera and letting it do it’s thing.

The Babies

As we approached the smallest tiger room first the staff told us to take off our shoes and enter. Once we entered we approached two baby tigers that were sprawled out on the floor. The photographer started snapping photos instantly and was instructing us on how to pose with the tigers and how to pet them correctly. The staff and the photographer were extremely polite and we were very happy that they weren’t too focused on exactly how many minutes we were in the room, they let us basically play with the tigers until we were ready to move on.

Half Way There

The next room was the medium sized tigers and there were two 10 month old tigers here just waiting to be pet. One was sleeping, and the other was busy gnawing on the sleepy tigers ear. Once again I set up the tripod and let the camera run as we pet and played with the tigers. At one point I asked the staff why the tigers were so sleepy and if they were tranquilized or drugged and he replied, “No, we do not drug the tigers. Tigers sleep an average of 16-18 hours/day.” At the time I was pretty skeptical of his answer. I thought, there’s no way that they could sleep 16-18hours/day. C’mon.

The Big Boys

Next up was the largest cats which were actually 24 months old and boy were they intimidating! All of the largest cats were awake and some were even walking around. They seemed to love when little kids walked by the cage because you’d see the tiger crouch down and get ready to chase the child who was outside of the fence.

An idiotic parent allowed her child to walk up the fence on his own and he had his fingers on the gate. Next thing you know the tiger is crouching down and watching his every move. Within seconds the tiger runs full speed to the fence and goes to grab the kids fingers. Luckily the kid jumped backwards in time. There is signs posted everywhere, “DO NOT PUT HANDS OR FINGERS INSIDE OF CAGE“. I’m assuming that people have gotten bit from time to time here. I mean really, they’re wild animals! Funny enough you can’t put your fingers or hands inside the cage but you can stroll in and pet the tigers. Very interesting…

Final Thoughts:

All in all our experience at Tiger Kingdom was excellent. We thought of it as a once in a lifetime experience and although we wouldn’t return there in the future, we would recommend that you do splurge on this place if and when you’re in Chiang Mai. And remember what ever you do, do not pay more than 200 baht to get to Tiger Kingdom from downtown Chiang Mai. Oh, and one more thing. I confirmed that tigers really do sleep an average of 16-18hours per/day. Look it up for yourself, if you’re skeptical like I was.

For more photos from Tiger Kingdom, head on over to the Chiang Mai album.