Kanchanaburi

OK I see that people are checking this thing... where are the comments?

I hit up the Tiger Temple today. I guess I was expecting to be disappointed but hoping to be surprised, if that makes sense. In the end, I was disappointed, which was really sad even though I was expecting it.

I'm pretty sure the tigers are drugged. The whole thing's become so commercialized that the volunteers lead people in and out of the tiger area in a constant stream. And if they treat the tigers anything like they treat the visitors (they pull you by the wrist from one tiger to the next), the tigers have to be annoyed at best, and really fucking pissed off and defeated at worst. They're chained. The tiger cub seems happy - he runs around and plays sporadically and seems to have a pretty good repor with the monk who was chillin' there today.

Some of the older tigers seem content enough, too. But one was pacing back and forth, clearly done with the whole thing, and they kept squirting him with this yellow liquid from a water bottle. I tried to ask them what they were squirting him with but they kept thinking I was saying I wanted my picture taken with him and wouldn't listen. A German guy on my bus there said he heard on a German news report that the yellow liquid was an all-natural thing to calm them down. He said it's very common and that people use it all the time and cats love it, but he didn't know the English word for it. He made me stop guessing after a while because, well, everything I was guessing was clearly wrong. Liquid catnip? Chamomile tea? Warm milk? (yes, I seriously guessed all these things)

The German guy said the news report interviewed a bunch of tiger experts and they all said they didn't understand how the monks kept these tigers so docile. I don't either. I thought maybe the tigers would be playing around and you'd just take a picture with whomever was resting when your turn came up, but they're all on short chains and perched sadly in their little spots.

The whole temple is a strange place. At feeding time they throw the food out and animals come out from all directions to eat. You have everything from deer to wild hogs to chickens to other birds to horses all running around in the same area. They kept the tiger out, chained down, while the other animals ran around and ate. His instincts are there even though he was brought up in captivity -- he got down low and stalked the animals that were close to him.

The cub, at least, seemed happy playing with the monk. I have some pictures of that (OK, I have 70 pictures of that), so I'll pick the best ones when I get home and post them. Another tiger seemed content enough, too. I walked alongside him and pet him for a while to see. (there's a very blurry picture of me walking with a grown tiger and a monk)

In the end, I kept trying to tell myself that these tigers are better off here than left at the hands of poachers. They have to spend four hours a day enduring obnoxious tourists (it was even worse today because it was raining and cats hate water, so if they were in their natural habitat, they'd seek shelter), but maybe it's better than the alternative. Maybe the monks are also figuring it's an ends-justify-the-means sort of thing (are monks ends-justify-the-means sort of guys), because once they raise enough money they can build a big new reserve for the tigers and the tigers can be happy. Maybe.

Anything the trek from downtown Kanchanburi to the Tiger Temple is about 25 miles. I took a guesthouse-sponsored tour vehicle, which ended up being a backless pickup truck with two rows of seats along the sides, facing each other. The other people on my tour were the German guy (who, incidentally, visited the temple four years ago and said it was a totally different experience back then); a couple with a Thai girl and a guy whose nationality I couldn't place; and two Australian men who I'm assuming were a couple based on their matching fisherman's hats, matching bags and shared giant pink umbrella with flowers. We all got very wet because it was pouring rain, but one of the Australians held the giant umbrella out in a well-meaning attempt to shield us from the muddy water spraying up from the back tires.

So when I got back from the temple I'd had 45 minutes to think about the tigers and I was pretty sad. But then I dropped my stuff in my bungalow and when I stepped back out onto the deck in front of my door there was a little brown and black cat sitting on the chair. So I told it to stay there, got my camera from inside and took a picture. Then I sat in the other chair to write in my journal and the cat jumped up in my lap. And then its friend, a little black cat with an injured tail, jumped up on my lap, too. The black cat soon relocated to the other chair, but the brown and black one stayed a while. And despite the tiger-sadness, I thought about the fact that I was sitting in Thailand with a cat in my lap and I'd just watched a baby tiger play with a monk -- and I realized that there was really nowhere in the world I'd rather be at that moment. Which is pretty cool.

So a quick outline of Kanchanaburi before I sign off...

This is the site of the bridge over the River Kwai and where about 7,000 POWs are buried after being killed while working on the railway during WWII. There's a relatively extensive museum here with a pertty balanced history of the war, so I checked that out and also walked through the cemetery with all the POW graves. They're mostly Brits and Aussies -- the few Americans who were killed were brought back to the U.S. for burial.

There's a lot more to see and do here but I'm not going to have time. I'll getting an early bus back to Bangkok tomorrow morning (I was gonna do the scenic train over the River Kwai but then decided there's no way I'll get to the station in time for the 7:15 a.m. departure), and I'll spend the day in Chinatown before getting an overnight train up to Chiang Mai where I'll hopefully do some rock climbing, go to a spa and do a night safari. Then I have an overnight train back to Bangkok and a day-long assortment of buses and ferries from Bangkok to Ko Samet. I was going to do Ko Chang (for the elephant trekking and scuba diving), but I realized last night that I won't have time.

Oh well...

Now I'm going to grab a quick drink at "No Name Bar," a backpacker hub with a sign outside that says "Get shitfaced on a shoestring."

Not sure when I'll be able to post again. I realized that beginning last night, I'd be spending the night in seven different beds/chairs/sleepers over eight days.

I might post from Bangkok tomorrow if I get tired of Chinatown...