Hunting Tigers

Day 25 (24/04/08): Kanchanaburi, Thailand

I had planned to get a lot more done today, but with all the travelling I had done recently, I ended up sleeping till almost lunchtime. I had some food, and spent an hour or so relaxing in a hammock overlooking the river. At 2pm the hostel had organised a minibus out to the 'Tiger Temple', a Buddhist Temple oustide of Kanchanaburi where the monks look after a large menagerie of animals, including of course, tigers!

The place isn't really a zoo, just a large open area, mostly dirt and dust, with a few scattered trees. Wandering around in here is a large collection of different buffalo, cattle, wild pig, goats, deer, chickens and peacocks. The animals are pretty tame, and you could walk right up to them and take photos or pet them. Especially cute were all the wild piglets which were scurrying about all over the place.

To see the tigers, you walked into a large canyon (appropriately named 'Tiger Canyon'). At the bottom were about a dozen or so tigers, all sleeping and chained on a short chain. The attendants would take your camera, and then lead you to a bunch of different tigers, which you could then stroke as they took photos of you. You had to leave your bags, hats, sunglasses, etc behind the barrier, as these were 'toys' to the tigers. The tigers were all pretty docile, and having lived there their whole lives, were ambivelant to the hordes of tourists stroking them and taking photos. I must say it was quite an interesting experience. Some of the tigers were quite small, obviously younglings, but some of the big adults were pretty huge! I remember looking at the paws, which were the size of my head, and realizing that these animals do really mean business!

At another place you could look at a few baby tigers. One was being walked around on a leash, and like any boisterous dog was pulling the 'owner' around, as it tried to chase after all the little piglets around the place. Other than that, there wasn't much more to the place. We did stay to watch them walk the tigers back from the canyon (from a safe distance of course!) and then got back on the minibus to Kanchanaburi.

I am now quickly writing up this post, before I head off to dinner. I am an unsure how much longer I will stay here before going to Bangkok. There are still a few things around the place I want to do. Tomorrow is also Anzac day, and I am toying with the idea of getting up for the dawn service, but you know what I am like with mornings....