Had pancakes this morning again.. don’t fix anything that ain’t broken! we need the sugar energy for out adventures today.

Today we are off to feed some wild bears.

We are being picked up from location near our hotel by a car to take us to “Free The Bears”. It’s just us so that is nice!

The traffic is unbelievable at this time in the morning. people just turning round in front of you to change lanes, hoards of motorbikes travelling toward you on the wrong side of the main road and taking up a full lane. our driver just knocked over a bike, then nearly hit a tuk tuk! It’s crazy, but on the other hand the sight of a monk on a motorbike would cheer anyone up!

Looking out my window of the car, every shop we pass only sells one item: bike wheels, tiles, fizzy juice, bike helmets, fans, ornate wooden chairs, and that is only about a 200 meter stretch. Unusual to see shops only do 1 item. I don’t know how these people can weld and build things in this temperature, I’m sitting in an air-conditioned car and sweating!

We were stopped for about 10 minutes outside another hotel and I naturally assumed that we were picking another wild bear enthusiast up to travel with us. after the 10 minutes, a bilingual British guy opened the door to take an angle grinder from the footwell of the passenger-side front seat….and off we went….

When we arrived we watched a short induction presentation by our guide, then headed out.

All the animals in cages at this sanctuary are kept there only until they are better/old enough to be released back in to the wild. Many of them are in a breeding programme here. This place is not just a zoo for people to ogle at the li’l critters.

First stop was 2 little monkeys that were adorable. Then otters, lions, tigers, elephants, pythons, gibbons, leopards, deer, and last but not least, the bears.

Shortly after we visited the 2 or 3 of the different animals, we prepared the food for the bears. we had an assembly line to make up a snack for each of the bears in this part of the sanctuary.

At 12pm we stopped for lunch in the shade. We got very nice rice and stir-fry veg. To drink, we had a freshly-opened coconut. After all that, we rested on hammocks for the rest of the pit stop… I obviously swung about like a 5 year old, while Laura rolled here eyes at me.

I must mention that before lunch I wasn’t feeling to great and was glad to be sitting down. The 35℃ heat was getting to me. We were all chatting, then I had to jump up and run away from everyone I could to hide my shame. But before I could, I projectile vomited all over a barbeque in full view of our guide and the people who prepared our lunch. Not to mention, other tourists. I tried to explain that it was not the food that did it, but I think they still took offence. Needless to say, I now felt emotionally awful, as well as physically.

After everyone pretended that didn’t happen, we went on our merry way.

Next on the agenda was feeding the bears. We took the food we prepared earlier for the bears and threw them over the fence of their enclosure.

The funniest thing (apart from seeing my breakfast in reverse) was the fact that at one point we were visiting the elephants. Getting told about the horrible things that have happened to these poor animals and this Asian man was ignoring the elephants and taking pictures of us…

Absolutely fantastic day! Our guide is clearly committed to the cause of stopping harm to endangered species. She had a lot to say about every animal in this sanctuary and was very informative. Absolutely recommended to any animal lovers or people who can stand the heat without vomiting! 🙂

Now I can actually say for the first time: “Been there, done that, got the T-shirt!”