1/11/08

Tiger Temple (Wat Phu Luang Ta Bua)

This buddhist temple is located in the Saiyok district of Thailands Kanchanaburi province. It was here that we visited after the Bridge over the River Kwai.

The temple apparently received its first tiger cub in 1999 when villagers found it on its own. Over time several more cubs were given to the temple to look after. It is thought that the current are Indochinese tigers. The tigers are washed and handled by Thai monks and once a day taken on a leash to a quarry nearby where visitors to the temple are allowed to get up close to these beautiful creatures and take photographs.

We arrived towards the end of the day and were told that you couldn't wear red, pink or orange colours. In addition you must be covered up as it is a temple. Fortunately I had bought some long black trousers earlier at the floating market so put these on and wore my karfan top. We entered the reserve and walked to the quarry where numerous tigers were lying in the sun with more than plenty of staff surrounding them. We queued for a few mins and were then taken by one member of staff each to sit next to the tigers and touch them whilst someone else took our photo. The staff were saying that we had to be quick as it was nearing the time for the tigers to return back to the den. Although the temple strongly claims the tigers are not sedated, it did seem as though they may have been and were starting to come around? Whilst kneeling near one tiger, it didn't seem to like me touching his belly (he was on his back) and he made a swipe at me with his paw!! The staff accompanying me quickly pulled me back and said to move on!

Once finished we made a line and followed whilst the monk lead the head of the tigers back to his den. We were again given another chance to walk next to the tiger and stroke him. Back near the den there were some small cubs to see and stroke and then it was announced that the animals were to be fed - and some feed this was because food was dropped out from a van and wild boar, chickens, horses, deer etc came charging out from the surrounding forest and began to feed. Ofcourse the tigers were carefully locked away by this point!

We returned to our transport ready (or not as the case was) for the 3 hour drive back to Bangkok!