Day 87: Nov. 30th: Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

We saw some white and orange tigers in Delhi last weekend, but it just did not compare to this experience. Today, we went to the Tiger Temple, a kind of relaxed zoo run by buddhist monks. To get there we had to take a local bus to Kanchanaburi (where the light show was last night) and then take a cross between a tuk-tuk and a pick up truck for 40km. It took forever to get there (a total of three and a half hours) and when we did we were very hungry. Although the ticket was about $16 (not including $ for transportation), they were serving free hot soup. Of course there was a donation box though..

The Tiger Temple is quite a unique place. First of all, the monks don't have just tigers there. Once you walk in the gates you come across boars, cows, buffalo, deer, horses, and peacocks. They are all just left to wander in this park that's just a large hilly space with trees and dirt and some temples. We wondered what all the grazing animals grazed on. They must be fed somewhere.

The main "road" led first to the bigger tigers. We walked into a small canyon with a waterfall in the background. In front of the fall were over a dozen tigers of all sizes. They were all laying down, napping or lazily flicking their tails as people one by one were led around to pet them. And be photographed with the help of the workers. They were chained in case of emergency, but they didn't seem to be going anywhere. They looked as if they could be sedated, but apparently, they have been well trained and are always well fed before they are taken to greet visitors. It helps that they're in a Buddhist temple...this automatically means that they don't believe in killing, which makes them calmer. Phew.

When we walked up, we joined the line and waited our turn to be led around. You weren't allowed to touch their heads and the worker wouldn't let you spend more than a few seconds at each tiger. The funny thing was that you could go through the circuit of tigers as many times as you wanted. And so we did, three times. We were slightly disheartened by their show-pony lifestyle until we were told by an Australian volunteer what they do the rest of the day.

In the morning they are fed, and then excersized by swimming around and frolicking with their friends. Then of the 34 tigers there, some of them are taken to the waterfall to lay for three hours and be pet by tourists like us. Then in the afternoon they are taken back to their homes and fed and allowed to play some more. The cubs are taken to a different photo shoot as a way to slowly introduce them to being around people.

So that's were we headed next. To see the three to four month old cubs. They were sizable for their age, but what do we know about tiger development. They were just the greatest and cutest things! And they were even awake and walking around. Occasionally the workers would play with them and pull their tails or whatever else they could to get them a little riled up and used to people. Then as a reward they would bottle feed them milk. We took many pictures with the babies. We even got to lay down next to them for some close ups. Some came out better than others but we took a billion so we hope that there's one good one. It's not fair that the tigers look good no matter what they do.

Soon it was time to go, which was sad. But we'd spent pretty much as long as we could with the tigers so we were happy. If we wanted to, we could have paid another fifty bucks each to bottle feed and spend time with the infant cubs. Or we could come in the morning to have breakfast with the monks and swim with the tigers. All for a small fee. Katie and Brittany might go back, but we can't unfortunately. Brittany is even thinking about volunteering there for a month after she finishes the year of teaching. How awesome would that be?

It really doesn't seem like there could be another place like this in the world.

We grabbed some Thai snacks of tofu on a stick, spring rolls, roasted bananas, and best of all: sticky rice with mangos and coconut sauce. Mmmmm. It was a scrumptious bus ride home.

When we got back we watched a movie called "Freedom Writers." It was about gang violence in high school and was a really good movie.

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