What's Up Al ? 遊記隨筆 生活點滴

We left bright and early in the cool morning air at 630 A.M., before the blazing sun melted the roads. A gentle 5 KM walk amongst the villages took us to the exotic Wat Tham Suea (Tiger Cave Temple). By then we were famish and downed a decent size chicken rice followed by a strong coffee to brighten up our stomach. The sugar and caffeine kicked us into action for our climb up of more than 1000 steps, to be greeted by the Great Buddha located on top of a steep karst hill. Firstly however, we had to deal with the notorious Tiger Cave local residents - gangs of monkeys ! These cheeky cousins had been known to charge, attack and steal from us humans ! Luckily, perhaps it had gone past their morning feeding times, we were only accosted and harassed by a few young ones - jumping onto Mandy's day pack and took a peek and then they left us alone. We challenged the 1000 or so steps with frequent pauses to admire the various flora, fauna and stupas. We finally dealt with the craggy steps, often half a meter in height and made it up to the top by about 930 A.M. and we were rewarded by a grand vista of the surrounding country side in the cloudless bright blue sky and we could locate Krabi town and River in a distance. Having paid our respect to the Great Buddha, we spent an hour or so visiting the various "Tiger Cave" temples, caves and an elegant Guan Yin pagoda, all set in peaceful and quiet surroundings at the base of the karst hill. The caves and temple complex were so named as years ago, tigers were seen around here, so the legend went. We left at about 1 P.M. and felt elated to have visited a most famous sight in Krabi as well as having had a great cardio-workout climbing up and down those equally famous "Tiger" steps !