Tiger Temple, Kanchanaburi, Thailand

I went to Kanchanaburi, Thailand over the Chinese New Year holidays to go and see the famed Tiger Temple that my parents discovered last year. Being animal (and especially cat) lovers, my sisters and I were totally up for it.

So off we went, other experiences totally aside (it was a hell of a trip!), and I was all ready to submit a review on TripAdvisor when I discovered some differing opinions of the temple. It's pretty intense what people are saying about the temple, so of course I just had to write up an entry on the allegations and some ridiculously asinine comments.

To start with, some had apparently accused the monks who run the temple of drugging the tigers to make them compliant, de-clawing them and only feeding them vegetarian food. These have been disproved and and are totally and absolutely not true.

The more serious accusations were that the tigers were being kept in cages and were being chained, not being allowed to roam free. Some say that the sole reason the tigers were being kept was to get money for the temple and not for the welfare of the tigers. Here's the thing. It is.

• The big picture is that the abbot of the temple isn't just a tiger man. Sure, he cares for the animals and wants to ensure they don't become extinct - but he also cares for the community. He provides jobs for the local village people (hee hee, village people), built a school for local children, built a free clinic, promotes free education and free access to water and does so much more with the money as well.
• Some on TripAdvisor commented that it's a tourist trap, and that he'd rather see the tigers in the wild. Well with less than 800 Indochinese tigers left in the world, I wonder just how he's going to swing that.
• Some said that the surroundings were not clean and that the water was dirty. When I went, it wasn't. The area was very clean. The water bottles left around were due to dirty tourists who ignored trash cans. I can't verify or deny this because it's something that could change from week to week.
• Others said that the tigers were beaten and chained and that means that they're not happy. The fact is that the temple has a very good reproduction rate - and cats who are not happy will not reproduce.
• While some say that the Tiger Island that is being built with proceeds from daily activities is not actually being built, I've seen it with my own eyes. It's incomplete but it's almost there, and once it's done, the tigers will have a much more comfortable environment.

Here's the benefit of my own personal experience with cats: the tigers looked like very happy, very contented cats. While some don't like the way they're treated - they're chained and dragged around and etc - it's just like a big collar on a cat. A tiger has a thick hide so petting them or touching them gently does not result in anything other than them thinking you're an annoying fly. And you are. Because you're an idiot.

Yes, I would love to live in a world where the tigers roam free and are not confined. Unfortunately, we live in a world where people poach these gorgeous creatures, skin them, grind up their bones, and do god knows what else. With less than 800 Indochinese tigers in the world, we desperately need institutions like these to help replenish the population and safeguard their future. Once there are enough, we can hopefully slowly release them to the wild.

To that end, I will not submit my review to TripAdvisor, but will do so here.

Tiger Temple, Kanchanaburi

The Tiger Temple is awesome! You get to play with tiger cubs and hang with the big cats. It's an experience unlike any other. I recommend it for all cat lovers. Here's a few things to remember though:

• The people at the tiger temple are not there to serve you. You are there because they let you be there. Show some respect.
• Bring some Baht with you so that you can do what you want. Pictures with the tiger's head in your lap are THB1,000, whether individually or in a group. Feeding the cubs is THB1,000 as well and most definitely worth the money as you get to play with them for half an hour with some toys, then feed them a bottle of milk.
• Listen to the advice of the monks, the workers and the volunteers. Don't forget, these are wild animals.

Don't forget that the big picture aim is to (1) replenish the cats' numbers in the world, (2) rehabilitate them for the wild, and (3) have a respectable number of big cats in the wild. This is my world, and that's how I'd like it. Please and thank you.