Ripley's Believe It or Not

Today Salley and I did the Ripley's Believe It or Not Mueseum, haunted house, 4D movie and maze.

Siracha Tiger Zoo

Today I went with Lakshmi and Eldar (other roadies) to the Siracha Tiger Zoo (all photos link). I went to this two years ago with Troy, but it was fun so I decided to go again. I am glad I did. We saw the Elephant Show. Its your typical elephant show...elephants tight rope walking, playing basketball, dancing, playing with hula hoops, and giving massages to random people out in the audience. Hmmmm that girl looks familiar?!


Visited the "Scorpion Queen"......its a lady who lets tons of scorpions crawl on her. Yuck.After that we saw the Crocodile Show and the Tiger Show, nothing new on those. Your standard crocodiles deciding not to eat their trainers while they stick their head in their mouth. Tigers jumping through hoops/standing up/dancing for us.
As always my favorite part of this zoo is that you can play with the baby tigers. For a small fee of course! We got to play with some crocodiles and just happen to be there when some of them were getting "hatched". The staff would break them out of the eggs then cut their little umbilical cords, rinse them and put them in a pond. We got to watch this but we were not allowed to take photos of it.
And also this time when we got our pictures taken with the monkey I got a kiss from one of them....and he slipped me the tongue! (shhhh don't tell Troy I got kissed!). Love the big guy in the yellow--wearing a Guns N Roses shirt, good taste!

A taste of the city of Doha

We decided to hit the town and see what the tourist sites are here in Doha. With that said...there really isn't any. This town is set up mainly for sporting events and business meetings. But we did manage to find a couple of things.
First there was the Qatar National Museum. This used to be the palace, originally belonging to Sheikh Abdullah Al Thani. But the Shiekh has since done a major up grade in location. Each of the buildings in this palace have artefacts of Qatar. There was a untensils room, money room, room with jewlery, sea life and the history of pearl fishing. The These give a glimpse of how rooms were furnished at the turn of the century and include furniture, artefacts and utensils from Qatar's past.


Second we went down to the Dhow Harbor. A Dhow is a type of boat that..
Third we found the Doha Zoo. This is the smallest zoo i have ever been to. But the price was right ($3 for entry).
Corniche - We took a stroll along the Corniche. The Corniche is a walking path and the name of the road near the bay of Doha. It is a must during your stay. This seven-kilometre stretch of coastline runs parallel to the warm waters of the Arabian Gulf and is used by walkers and runners, as well as the more adventurous roller-bladers. It offers a relaxing environment for family picnics and a nearby park for children. Fully landscaped with ample parking, the Corniche is the ideal place to unwind.

Nora, Italy

Near to our hotel was this little "city" of Nora. It contained some ruins. The craftsmanship is still obvious to this day. It was a small small town so there is not a ton to see but it made for a nice afternoon.

London Town

Troy and I headed to London this weekend. We had been there before so it was much more calm that the last trip. We got into town on Friday after troy got off work. Friday night we went walking around the Piccadilly area, the Parliament building, and the London Eye. Which is one of the most ugly things I have seen. There is the beautiful architecture around it then WHAM here is a HUGE Bicycle wheel with lights on it. It should be called eye sore not London Eye. The there is Big Ben for all of you who think that's the name of the clock your wrong. It's actually the Bell's name in the clock. We found a carousel so of course had to ride on that! Plus we found the phone booth we toke our tourist pictures at the first time there so we got updated one! Saturday daytime we redid the Westminster Abby. But this time we took our time and did a tour. Since seeing the movie The Davinci Code I wanted to revisit Sir Isaac Newton's tomb it's in the Nave if you follow the Westminster Abby interactive map. You are not allowed to take photos of the inside so I could only do the outside. Then we went to the London Tower, which we got there to late so we didn't go inside but toured the outside instead. We also had to do our tourist pictures of the Tower Bridge (people know it as the London Bridge but its not-there is a London bridge next to it). Funny thing is the people we asked to take our picture happen to be from Minneapolis, MN (USA) small world huh? And we bought tickets for The Lion King play that night. London is supposed to be the second best place to see plays. New York being number one! That was Saturday night and was fun. The costumes were amazing and it had a couple good singers. After the play we went to a restaurant that was like a TGIFs but with fine dinning and the decorations were all old plays stuff. Troy drank a whole bottle of red wine on his own-and I did a fine job of getting us home without a map. We found out the hard way the train stations stop at midnight so we had to walk. Sunday we were going to go tour the Tower of London but troy wasn't feeling so good (shocker huh!). So we slept in then flew home to the Netherlands. So next England trip we agreed to start at the London Tower, we haven't seen it yet from the inside! It holds the royal family jewels.

Chaing Rai

A day trip to Chiang Rai.
A chance to visit the famous Golden Triangle where the borders of Thailand, Burma and Laos meet! An early morning drive through beautiful scenery, with a stop at the Hot Springs at Maekajan, culminates in the chance to explore this world -famous spot, notorious for its opium trade!

From a viewpoint set high on the hillside, there are magnificent views over the Mae Khong River to the physical triangle made by Burma, Laos and Thailand at the confluence of the Ruak and Mekong River. For a small fee, you can also enjoy the boat ride to view the splendor of mighty Mae Khong River.

Continue on to Mae Sai, the farther-most northern trading border between Thailand and Burma, where local lunch is provided. On the return journey stops are made at Akha and Yao hilltribe villages.

Raffle's, Merlion, Esplande, Fountain, etc.

We have been very busy these last few days. We had to come to Singapore to get our Visas for Thailand. You have to get your visa out of the country because it starts the day you enter. You don't need a visa if you stay in a country for under 30 days, just went you go over that amount of time. So oh darn we had to go to Singapore for a few days.

While we were there we of course saw more than just the Thailand Embassy! The street that our hotel was on is Orchard Road. This is like the magnificent mile (Michigan Ave in Chicago). Only a couple differences. In Chicago the street is lined with top end stores, restaurants, museums, and bars. In Singapore its mainly just stores. Hermes, Coach, D&G, Prada, Tiffany & CO, etc. If you love to shop this is the place to spend a lot of money fast. Singapore is also known for its electronics, so troy and I got new digital camera. So my pictures will greatly improve after this entry! The subway system is very very clean here, most of the time you are walking from one subway station to the next you are in a mall. So it is hard to find the actual subway system because they are usually in the malls. I was told this is the nicest subway system in the world! I can believe that.

Raffle's Hotel- is a beautiful hotel. It's been even prettier after I left their famous Long Bar-Home of the Singapore Sling drink. If you never have had one before I would recommend them. It's like a sex on the beach but with a different type of alcohol. They are very good.

Merlion statue-is a statue that is 1⁄2 lion and 1⁄2 fish. The island of Singapore was found because a man in a boat thought he saw a white lion on the beach (they are sacred here). Then it became a major fishing town. This island itself is not large; we to a taxi from one end to the other (long way) and it took about 30 min.

The Fountain of Wealth-this is the world's largest fountain. We went there to partake in its ritual, which is the walk round the middle bottom of the fountain. It is said that walking round the fountain and touching its water brings good luck to the person carrying out the ritual. Sir Richard Branson did it so it must work!

We also saw a couple temples. I didn't take many pictures of the second one because a service was going on while we were there and I felt that would be rude. The first was the Thian Hock Keng Temple. And then the Sri temple.

Esplande is the name of their new convention center. We didn't go to an event but did see it from the outside.
Night Safari. The zoo there is suppose to be pretty good but since we have both see a lot of zoos we wanted to do something a little different. So we took a Night Safari tour. This tour takes you on a trolley through an area of land where the animals roam around. Obviously the very dangerous ones like the leopards and lion have some glass between them and us. But most animals just wandered a round. You are not allowed to take photos with a flash since these are night creatures and would hurt their eyes and startled them. Since my camera can't do that you don't have pictures of this sorry. However we got to walk along with hyenas, elephants, giraffes, hippos (they were huge). One tourist last weekend wasn't following the rules (like oh so many stupid people) and took a flash picture of the hippo, well just like they warn you the hippo got scared and trampled the lady and her family-I bet she doesn't do that again! This happened the week before I got there, I figured that would scare people a little, but sadly enough many people still had there cameras out with the flash on.

I know you have all heard me say it before. But why do some people think they need special treatment just because of who they think they are. One day's examples.

While at the Zoo people were told in 6 different languages NOT to take pictures with flashes. Is that really that hard to understand? Why do they think they are so high and mighty that they can ruin an animal's vision for their mere one picture? Or startled and animal that's 10-20 times their size to the point it greatly injuries themselves, family, and staff. Even when the staff came up to them and told them to turn their flash off they continued to do it. I think their asses should have just been thrown out of the zoo without a refund!
Then there are the parents who think that just because they are there with their child that they have the right to not listen to staff members. The people behind us in line at the train (for the safari) were instructed to move to the end of the train line so that it could be filled in correctly. They had to sit in the front! So they stood there until staff "made" them move to the back to fill in the open areas. Then while we went to the FREE show at the end of the zoo night this boy (probably 30plus years old) decided that he needed to sit as close to the stage as possible so the A-hole actually removed the RESERVED sign on the chair so he could sit. The staff told him to move and he got in their face about how he paid for is admission just like everyone else so no one should be special and get reserved seating. The idiot later found out why that seat was reserved-it was reserved for a cast member and an 8-foot snake! Which showed up almost on his lap-I hope he shat himself!

Other examples that bug me lately. And I would just like to say..yes I realize I don't have children but come on...

When at the airport they announce overhead that they are now seating people with disabilities and SMALL children. Small children to me is probably under 5years old. Not teenagers (and they looked pretty healthy to me)! They also announce the flight is full so please put one item under your seat and one in an overhead bin. I have had this happen many times. If I have one item I will put it under my seat so there is more room. But I have seen so many people that still put their two items up in the bins. And most of the time one article is very small anyway-like a coat. Stupid. I have actually had one of these type of people tell me (after hearing me bitch) that someday I would understand why people do that on plans and that's why he wants to be seated right away so he can do that. Well would now consider myself somewhat of a traveler now and I still don't get it. I don't get how anyone can think of themselves as greater than someone else.
We are done here, so back to Thailand we go.

The Sanctury of Truth, Buddha Mountain

This building is completely hand carved wood. The details and craftsmanship is amazing. The idea is that every major religion on Eastern philosophy is represented in this building. There is a section that you can even help do some of the carving. I didn't get a tour so may facts are sparse, for more info go to http://www.sanctuaryoftruth.com/

The second thing we did today was to go see the Buddha Mountain. This is a cliff inlaid with gold leaf in the outline of a sitting Buddha. This is the largest Buddha image in the world. It is 130 meters tall, 70 meters wide, and can be seen from miles away. The image and mountain are alternately referred to as "Buddha Mountain", Khao Chee Chan, or "Phra Phuttha Maha Vachira Utta Mopas Sasada". During the Vietnam Conflict the Thai navy was mining the mountain for stone to be used at an American base. After the war the mountain was illegally mined for stone to be sold to construction companies. When his Majesty put a stop to the mining, he suggested that they create a Buddha image in gold to commemorate the King's Golden Jubilee. American lasers to two days to do the carving itself. But it took months to fill in the carving with gold. The cost of this project was over $3 million. In the park surrounding the cliff there are many areas to meditate and rest. And there are signs there to point you in the most scenic viewpoint. Directly in front of the cliff face are shrines, elaborate gardens, and a number of terraced pools stocked with lotus flowers. Pains have been taken to make Buddha Mountain a quiet, contemplative place.