Ok, so here's the real story on my River Kwai excursion. It could be considered a disaster. For starters, I ended up on the wrong tour. I was supposed to ride the train on the Death Railway, but I ended up in the wrong group. I wasn't terribly disappointed, in part because I was completely smitten with my tour guide. She looked like a Thai version of Thandie Newton.
I tried to make clever and witty conversation, but there was a definite language barrier. She spoke Thai, of course, but she also spoke English well. However, when it came to my turn to speak, all I could manage to say was "Duh" or some variation thereof.
Then my camera died at the worst conceivable time.
My tour included Wat Pa Luangta Bua Yanasampann, better known as the Tiger Temple. It's a monastery-turned-animal sanctuary where I was told you could actually touch the tigers.
We walked down into Tiger Canyon, where the tigers are kept during the day. There were maybe 15 tigers there, all sleeping. Because they sleep through the heat of the day, and because they've spent so much time around humans, they lie there while an endless stream of tourists poses for pictures with them. For the entrance fee you get to have your picture taken with one.
But for 1000 baht (about 30 bucks) you get to do this:
Look at the size of that beast, for crying out loud. My God, what a magnificent animal. These are Indochinese tigers, which can weigh as much as 400 pounds. His head is the size of a basketball. And that's no optical illusion -- his paws are that big.
I also got to do this:
And this:
That's the monastery Abbot Phra Acharn Phusit (Chan) Kanthitharo making sure my vocal cords stay intact.
There's a small army of volunteers who guide tourists through the maze. The rules are very strict about what you can wear, partly for safety, partly because it's a monastery. It was when I first lay down next to the tiger that the volunteer who had my camera noticed that the battery was dead! I nearly cried. They just happened to have disposable cameras for sale, but I haven't gotten those pix developed yet.
These photos are from my digital camera, and were taken today. When I told the girl at the hostel who booked my tour that I didn't get the tour I had paid for, she offered to send me on another tour for free, including the one I had just done. I wasn't keen on spending another 12+ hours in a minivan. But it meant I would get to ride the train, and go to the Tiger Temple again.
(I also had the crazy idea that I might get to see my beloved tour guide again. It was a different tour, though, with a different driver -- but she was my guide! Was it Fate? No, it was definitely not Fate. I still couldn't get past "Duh".)
Just up the hill from Tiger Canyon is a platform where four cubs sleep. You can just walk right up and pet them. Three of them lie in the shade of the fence while the fourth lies on the platform, where you can sit and have photos taken. (The photo at the top is of one of the cubs.) Here I am petting a wide-awake tiger cub, which happens to be the size of an adult Black Lab. Again, check out the size of those paws!
The monastery wasn't intended to be an animal sanctuary, but local villagers brought an injured jungle fowl to the abbot. Peacocks were attracted by its calls. A wounded boar was nursed by the monks and released back into the forest. He returned the next day with his family in tow. Then people started bringing tiger cubs that had been rescued from poachers.
Now there are all sorts of critters roaming around. In this photo are goats, normally camera-shy deer and -- your eyes do not deceive you -- a camel.
The tiger is the biggest of the big cats and is on the short list of the world's most fearsome predators. (Siberian tigers can weigh over 800 pounds.) So being groped by tourists may not be the most dignified way for them to spend their days. However, because they are so threatened by poaching and loss of habitat, if they weren't here they'd almost certainly be dead.
The admission price is 500 baht, and there are donation boxes all over the compound. It's money well spent, since it all goes towards the care of the animals. They're in the process of building a huge addition so that the adult tigers will each have a private area to roam. The goal is to return the cubs to the wild.
http://www.tigertemple.org/Eng/Donation.htm
During my photo session today the volunteers positioned me behind one of the biggest tigers, a monstrous brute I could have fit inside of with room to spare, so that they could put his head in my lap. As they lifted his head he bared his teeth, started growling and swatting with his paw. They quickly pulled me back out of the way. (I didn't resist.) The big cat closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
It made me realize the precariousness of my situation. Yes, these animals are conditioned to be tolerant of tourists. Yes, there are dozens of handlers to make sure nothing goes wrong. But these are huge, powerful and astonishingly agile predators that could end my life before anyone could do anything to save me. It was quite a thrill. I felt quite privileged to be so close to these beautiful, majestic and, sadly, endangered animals. I had my picture taken with ten of them. Twice!
The day took a tragic downturn, however, when a member of my group was the victim of a savage and unprovoked attack by one of the animals.
Posts
