#2181 Tiger Cave Temple

Let's head back to Krabi tonight so I can tell you about seeing a giant gold Buddha statue at the Tiger Cave Temple.

When MT and I were researching the trip and figuring out things to do, we both agreed that we would like to see a Buddhist temple. MT found out about the Tiger Cave Temple where you had to climb over 1,000 steps to see the Buddha at the top of the mountain.

Our guide and driver picked up up at the pier. We took a little detour through Krabi town to check out the morning market and to see the river, then it was off to the temple.

There is a big temple onsite and it looked like it was either being built or refurbished or something. Seeing the temple itself wasn't the draw for us so much as climbing up the mountain to see the big Buddha at the top.

Turns out you have to climb 1,237 steps to get up there.

They do NOT all look like this:

Mostly they look like this:

You can see that it is steep and the steps are tall. Really, though, the steps varied in height and width. Mostly they were extremely narrow. I couldn't put my whole foot on a step.

Did I mention it was steep?

The first 300 steps or so weren't too bad; we got up those fairly quickly. We both had bottles of water that our kind guide had purchased for us. Helpfully, on those big blue posts you see there were numbers painted on so you could tell where you were and how far you had to go

At around 500 steps I very much considered turning around and going back down. It was hot and I was sweating and my legs were burning. I didn't think I had another 700 steps in me. MT told me later that he was sort of feeling the same way. MT was a lot faster than I was. I got to a point where I would go up about 10 steps, take a quick breather then go up 10 more steps. I may have silently shed a tear or two around step 618. At 933, I knew I was going to make it.

photo by MT

Here I am, sweating my way up, pausing on the tenth step. The shade was good but it was hot out there.

After about 70 minutes of climbing, we finally reached the top. The breeze up there felt so great and the views were spectacular.

In this first one, you can see the Krabi River feeding into the Andaman Sea:

This is a view to the right of the photo above. Look at the mountains!

MT took this panoramic shot. It is just to the right of the photo above this one. That's me standing in front of the little shrine on top of the stairs (not counted in the 1,237 I'll have you know!)

pano shot by MT

Then there is this shot of the countryside, that unfolds to the right of the photo above. I'm trying to give you a 360 degree view from the top of the mountain. 

Remember I mentioned the big temple that was being refurbished? Here is a photo of it when we were up around 200 steps.

And here is a view from the top of the mountain, looking down on it:

Then of course there was the main attraction:

We stayed up at the top for 30 minutes or so before we psyched ourselves up to head down the steps. In some ways, going down was harder walking. It was more jarring on the knee joints for sure.

A side note here that my surgically repaired knees both felt just fine. There's no way I would have been able to do this adventure before the surgeries. If anything, the newer knee felt a little tender at the end of the day. The older knee was solid.

Here we are on the way down. You can tell we are descending because I'm smiling.

photo by MT

 Here's MT, almost at the bottom!

Our guide, whose name I do not know, greeted us at the bottom with ice cold Gatorade and cold towelettes. (Cold towels are a thing in Thailand that I absolutely loved!) My legs were quivering but I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want MT to think I was a big baby. Imagine my relief when he said that his legs were shaking like leaves. When we got back in the van the legs were sort of spasming. It was weird and kind of awful but not painful at all. I was only a little bit sore the next day.

I had my Apple watch on that day to give me some data. That day I burned 1,761 calories; my norm is around 650 and into the 900s on an exercise day. It counted the exercise time at 222 minutes. A note on that though is that I have a protective cover on my watch and it got all sweaty under there and I was unable to stop the exercise time, so it's exaggerated a bit. My watch also says I walked 14,185 steps that day for a distance of over six miles. It was a big day.

Overall I'm really glad I made it to the top and lived to tell the tale. I don't know that I would ever want to do it again, but never say never!

You can read more about Wat Tham Sua here.