The Buddhist Monk Tiger Temple
One of our day trips in Thailand included a stop at this tiger temple. I've been to many zoos in my life and have seen animals in random places, but I couldn't have guessed what this trip actually entailed!
There were so many rules before you entered the temple. They were for the Buddhist religion along with your personal safety from the tigers!
The building behind this sign is where anyone desiring to become a monk comes to live and meditate. All bad karma has to be undone and they have to have nothing but good karma in their past. Our guide also told us they are not allowed to touch women, they can only eat once a day and the rest of the day they can only drink water, they are not allowed to touch money, and they are not supposed to wear shoes. At this temple, each monk is also assigned to a tiger to train and meditate with. The tigers are said to only respond to their monk.
Here we go!!
Here are a bunch of pictures of us with the tigers. This first picture of Marshall is the only tiger that was actually chained to something. The rest of them that we saw in the canyon have chains around their necks but are not hooked to anything!
This specific picture is when we were both still a little apprehensive about petting the tigers. I made Marshall go first and when he first went up to this tiger it was laying down sleeping. Then it sat up and started moving his head around. Thank GOD it wasn't me. I would have screamed for sure!
We watched a bunch of tigers play and I had fun snapping some pictures of them!
One of the options you could "buy" is to actually get inside and play with the tigers. You would take a long stick that has this like blown up bag or something tied to the end. Their were like 10 people who went inside and they would bang these bags on the ground to make a noise and the tigers would leap and jump towards them. Each person had to have a guide with them, although when the tigers would go charging sometimes, the guides would scream and run too. I am ok that we passed on this one!!
These pictures were inside the canyon. We had to walk with a guide a certain way around the tigers, and we had to pet them firmly. Apparently if you pet them too soft, it tickles them and they think you want to play. Also they told us that wearing a skirt is bad because if it blows in the wind the tigers will think its a toy to chase after! Ahhhh! No thank you!!
There are 106 tigers in this temple! The guide also told us that because the monks meditate and train them so well that the tigers just "pretend" to be sleeping half the time. She told us it is like when you are little and would pretend to go to sleep, that the tigers do the same thing. I asked if they ever bite people and she laughed and said yes, that does happen sometimes. She said "It is a problem because they do not know their strength!" Well no crap! I am grateful that most of the tigers I petted were either sleeping or pretending!
This guys was HUGE!
They told me that I could touch this tiger's head. That made me a little nervous too, but by the end I was feeling pretty brave! :)
Our guide was awesome and went and asked the monk if we could get our picture with him. He told us to bend down and then he stood. I am glad they told me that women are not allowed to touch him before. Marshall asked if he could put his arm around him and the guide laughed and said oh no no no. Guess not?!! :) This is also one of the original monks in this temple who planned and orchestrated the building of this whole canyon for the tigers!
BBC news was also there doing a special! :)
We really loved the whole trip and experience at this temple!! I would definitely recommend it to anyone visiting Thailand! It is like 3 hours outside of Bangkok but TOTALLY worth the trip!!
Here is a video of the tigers playing around! XOXO