Dispatch from China: The time I got drunk off tiger wine (part 2 of 2)

Read part 1 of this story here.
The automated gates chug and clatter open as a jeep, its windows ribbed with steel, noisily announces its arrival in the tiger park. Without the usual gaggle of tourists to impress, the occupants of a neighbouring jeep toss out a skinny pheasant as the driver shouts obscenities at a dozen lounging Siberian tigers.
One tiger finally takes notice and lunges at the fluttering fowl, which has enough brains to scuttle under one of the jeeps. The tiger, neither as sharp nor as small as the pheasant, slams into the vehicle with a thud. And as the hulking beast shakes off the dust and disappointment of his failed attempt, the pheasant dashes into the brush. The striped leviathan promptly settles back down, seemingly deciding that the prey isn't worth the effort.
And why not, for these tigers are already well-fed, particularly by the 300,000 tourists who flock every year to the tiger park at the Hengdaohezi Feline Breeding Centre on the outskirts of Harbin in northeastern China's Heilongjiang province.
On a nondescript street near downtown Harbin, the Double Mountain Local Products Wholesale Center offers the usual array of kitsch items stripped from the wilderness:
The manager is certain the bottles are the genuine article because, she says, "they came from over at that tiger park". She is referring to the
If you're looking for a cheap way to travel, and a cultural experience that will bring you past wandering in a country, hoping something significant in your life happens, here's an organization that looks like a promising possibility. 







April Fool's Day, 2007, I wrote a post on 













