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.

Cat Burglar

So I'm blogging in full view and full screen awesomeness in the office due to the fact that the whole office has gone for a 1.5 day offsite Business Review & Brainstorming Meeting. I'm not invited because I've already resigned and there are "confidentiality issues". Awesome!

Anyway, I took the opportunity to start moving today over an extended lunch period. Of course, the cats went nuts because there were strange men making lots of noise, and in the chaos, I couldn't find Speedy, the 1-year-old male. I almost freaked out. I thought it was going to be another Pinky: The Case of the Missing Bengal Kitten. And then the movers started to pick up a chunky bedframe and then BAM! he came running out of nowhere. He'd scratched a hole underneath the bedframe and had been hiding in there.

I related the story to my department secretary, a fellow cat lover, and she told me about her friend's cat who's a kleptomaniac. For serious. The cat collects anything - scrunchies, pieces of foil, bracelets, anklets - that's shiny, and squirrels them away in a tiny little hole. No shit. It's incredible. I'd heard of such behaviour from rats, but not cats. I'd love to see it for myself.

So that's that. Another entry will probably follow tomorrow, due to the lack of work and lack of people. Enjoying it while it lasts.

A Furry Story

Introducing The Players:

• Jet - grumpy, black adult female
• Pinky - playful, rapidly increasing in size female Bengal kitten
• Lula - playful adult female
• Speedy Gonzales - the only male in the house and definitely does not have the balls to prove it

Bath Day:

Jet has only recently been transferred from my parents' house to my apartment due to the recent disappearance of her sister, Ewok (hope she's okay :( ). Being the super grumpy hissy cat that she is, she was angry at everyone and everything and hated all the resident kitties.

Fast forward to bath day - the day of reckoning when all the cats hate me. Jet was hanging out in my bathroom when I brought Speedy in for a quick one. Now, whenever I bathe Speedy, it's as if I'm torturing him. I swear, I'm surprised nobody has called Animal Welfare on my ass yet.

So there I am bathing Speedy who's meowing his little head off as if I'm disembowelling him, and Jet starts meowing too. I pay no attention to this as she's quite the little attention-whore. Imagine my surprise when Jet jumps onto the side of the tub and bites me in a bid to protect Speedy from the evil water-wielding human.

It was only a superficial bite, which drew a bit of blood but I didn't really care about that. Cat owners tend to have such things every so often. What totally caught me by surprise was Jet's willingness to fight for a cat that she hates and hisses at every chance she gets.

This isn't the first time I've seen cats respond to another cats' call for help - everytime I bathe Speedy, I open the bathroom door to find the other cats standing outside waiting for him. Once, Lula even came to the bathtub and looked distinctly worried. I'm not kidding - brows furrowed and all.

There was also another incident when I took Lula out for a walk and left Speedy behind because he's terrified of the outside. When we came back, Speedy meowed his little head off at Lula and sniffed her all over to make sure she was okay.

I don't really have a point to this story. I think it's just interesting to note that there's more to animals than we give them credit for. Sure, they're just animals, but when they start displaying emotions?