The entrance of Tiger Temple was glaringly hard to miss.   While I expected this tiger encounter to be somewhat of a tourist attraction, all my research led me to believe this sanctuary run by Buddhist monks was a holy place where orphaned tiger cubs had been given homes…but instead it appeared we were driving into a cartoon version of an amusement park—literally through the mouth of a giant tiger…

The Boy was glaring at me by now to figure out why I made him trek so far from Bangkok in the dark and still wake up at 6am for some cheesy photo-op, but I promised him it would get better…it had to…

And oh how it did…

We spent the morning with tigers.   We gave offerings of food to the monks, then we went and bottle fed tigers their milk.   And while I used to think my darling niece was a messy eater, I now have a pair of pants I need to burn immediately because the combination of spilled milk and tiger cub slobber will never, ever come out (Sahara desert residue I could live with, but this is a bit much…)  And once the tiger was fed, he entered into the “milk drunk” stage and basically didn’t care what was up…including letting us use him as a little pillow as we cuddled!  (I stopped numbering the bad life decisions somewhere around the Kremlin, so let’s just keep our fingers crossed that when we finish the 2nd half of this trip we come home with all body parts still attached…) [Ed. note: I still have plans on catching a kangaroo.]

The tiger encounter didn’t stop at breakfast…next they needed to go for a walk.   The volunteer determined we needed to be given their largest tiger cub on a leash to walk since the babies would look much too tiny next to my tall husband…and then they gave me the leash and said “hold on”…  Thankfully, the tiger liked me and behaved well, he walked slow and straight and didn’t turn around much to stare me down.   When I handed the leash over to the boy for his turn, it was another story.   The tiger either didn’t like him or sensed he was the reckless one and decided to test the limits.   It turned around a bunch, causing my husband to have to keep turning too to stay behind the head and out of striking range.   It tried to climb a tree for a bit…and then it went for a run.   And what could He do but run also!  Off the Boy went, being pulled along behind a massive tiger cub, holding on tight and hoping to stop before it got to the adult tiger enclosure full of “friends”… [Ed. note: my tiger was the only one that thought a playful run was needed. And it was a tiger.]

The amount of interaction we were allowed with so many tigers was surprising…and the fact that I willfully participated in every crazy part of it has left me reflecting on my sanity.   Next up was bath time…yes, we got to hand wash the tigers…and then when they were clean we got to hand feed them chickens—and I do mean we held a cooked chicken by a wing and got to stuff it into the tigers mouth until it was done.  Except for the boy, who had the great pleasure of feeding the last 5 inches of chicken to his tiger when a very large, very loud adult tiger chose that moment to roar…and there was no shame at all when he dropped the leftover chicken and moved back fast!

So we’ve now bottle fed, hand fed, walked, and bathed the tigers…what else do they need? Playtime of course!   Into the large “cage” we went. [Ed. note: cage brings to mind something small. This was more like a decent sized suburban yard with trees and whatnot, but fenced in, and full of energetic tigers.]  Yes, I’m serious.   The staff led us across the open tiger pen and lined us up along the wall, then handed each of us a long stick with plastic bottles and bags tied to the end.  Surrounding us were no less than 10-15 tigers, all between 175 and 250 pounds…and nothing else.   We were told to make noise and move the toys on the sticks until a tiger comes over to us, then pull the stick up to make them jump.  These sticks, in case you were wondering, were about 8 feet long…but the tigers liked to come around the inside of the toys, so usually the tigers were only 4 feet or less away and jumping up at the things we were holding.   Over and over again…for at least 20 minutes.   [Ed. note: They’re like those feathers on sticks you get to play with a house cat…play keep away, entertain the cat, whatnot. Only tiger-sized.]  I feel like they should have sold t-shirts at this point: “I survived being locked in the tiger cage…”  I would wear that with pride and I don’t even like t-shirts! 

The finale of our bad decision Thursday came when we headed down to the waterfall.   Somehow I ended up first in our single file line here, so when we walked into the tiger field, they led me around 3 tigers who were easily 300 pounds each and told me to sit down on the ground behind the fourth.   And then they put my right hand on my lap and pushed the tiger’s head into it to lie down.   Yes, I was suddenly cradling a 300 pound kitty cat who kept trying to lift his snout and look at who had a hold of him…My husband plopped down behind me, we snapped this year’s Christmas card photo, and then I got the heck out of dodge!  

We were done actually handling the tigers, but these big guys still needed to play…so they locked us inside a waist height metal baby gate and corralled the 4 cats into the water directly in front of us.  As we were mesmerized by the swimming and climbing the rocks, in strolled the craziest man I have ever encountered, shirtless and smoking a cigarette.   Yes, this Thai man was about to go swimming with 4 tigers.  And not only was he swimming with them, he was taunting them with sticks and toys.   He was yelling, poking them, swimming behind rocks and banging on chimes….and the entire time the other staff member who was between the water and our little metal shield was sitting on the sand playing Candy Crush…and if a cat happened to come near, he stood up, waved his left hand at it to shoo it away, and kept playing his game with the right hand…

I wonder how what their staff turnover rate is…seems like they would filter through them quickly when they are that reckless!