Tiger Temple is a temple in the heart of West Thailand. But this is no ordinary temple. The temple is not only the residence of monks, but also of tigers.
When villagers found an orphaned tiger cub, they went from place to place seeking help. Upon arrival at the monastery, the cub was welcomed out of compassion and saved from certain death. Since then many more tigers have found refuge under the abbots loving care, in what has become a conservation project.
Unfortunately this particular site was not covered on my group tour, so the day after the tour finished I went with two others from the group to visit the Tiger Temple. The reason that it was not covered by the Intrepid tour is that Intrepid (the tour operator) believes that the tigers are drugged. I wanted to decide for myself, as did the other with whom I went. So we booked an organised day trip - not the cheapest way to go, but the most time-efficient.
Well, my impression was that the tigers were very much awake. Some were chained to trees, some were not chained at all, and others were held on a leash by one of the volunteer carers (not much assurance there, as if one of these tigers decides to go for you, a person with a flimsy chain will not be able to hold them back).
As you can see in the photographs, the tigers played with each other (particularly with the cub). 'Play' is an imprecise term, since at one point one of the adult tigers was about to strangle the fiesty little tiger cub with the strength of his/her bite.
The temple is only open to visitors for a few hours at about noon - supposedly, the time of day when the tigers have less energy due to the intense heat. Visitors are not allowed to wear bright colours (i.e. red, orange, yellow) which might excite the tigers, and must not wear loose items which the tigers might regard as a toy.
I was more nervous than expected when I first went to stroke the tigers. Nervous in part because tigers are one of the greatest predators that exist, and also in part because I knew that if anything happened to me, I would have great difficulty convincing my insurance companythat this activity fell within the terms of the policy. Realistically, i had no hope if the tigers were feeling peckish.
I soon put my fears to one side, and before long I was stroking the tigers on their backs and their tummies.
I did at one stage stand too close to one tiger who was dangerous, I was later warned. The tiger was chained to a tree with a 1 metre chain... and I was well within 1 metre of him trying to take a good photo. Whoops! *sigh of relief*
Later, the crowd of about 30-40 visitors were asked to stand in an enclosed area while the 'big boys' were brought out to go for a drink in the canyon. This provided us with an opportunity to walk the tiger (which I did, as you will see in one of the photos).
I'm not sure whether these tigers that were brought out later were drugged. They certainly seemed very sleepy once we reached the canyon. But then I was feeling sleepy too under that blazing sun.
Well, anyway, the tigers had some water from the artificial(?) waterfall and lay down on the rocks. We were given specific instructions as to what we could and what we could not do. Everyone that wanted, was guided into the canyon with two guides with several opportunities to be photographed stroking the tigers.
I was very tempted to pay for a 'special' photo which put the tigers head n your lap so that you could cuddle it. Or alternatively, I saw some people lying on the tiger's tummy pretending to sleep, while the tiger's paw was placed on top of their head. Would have loved to have done that, but in the spirit of sticking to a backpacker's budget, decided against.
Definitely, a memorable day.
