Abbot Pra Ajarn Phusit has been taking care of the abandoned Tigers and other animals in Kanchanaburi’s famous Tiger Temple since 1999, when he found some abandoned tiger cubs in the province’s nearby forest, and brought them to the temple to take care of them.
Pra Ajarn (meaning monk teacher or head monk in Thai) is a kind, inspirational man who doesn’t mind posing for the tourists’ cameras and it’s easy to see how closely bonded he and the tigers are with the way they respond so lovingly to him.
The First Visitors to the Sanctuary
During the first few years of the animals being there, the monastery was very low key the monks being the tigers only handlers and the occasional tourist or expat making a visit and roaming round the grounds and taking photos of the tigers and other wildlife at their own risk.
Recent Development
Lately with the visits to the temple being more structured and more carefully supervised and with animal conservation volunteers getting involved the tours have become a lot safer for visitors and also popular and more commercialized.
In 2008 world renowned animal trainer Jachinthe Bouchar visited the monastery for her second time spending 2 and a half weeks there, teaching staff animal training techniques. A planned new animal enclosure will be used for training clubs to fend for themselves, giving them the necessary skills to survive in the wild.
Tiger Temple Tours
There are several different scheduled tours for temple from a full day tours where you arrive at the temple at 7’o clock in the morning and have breakfast with the monks to half day tours where tourists arrive at around 3 p.m. just in time to see the adult tigers being walked down to a rock canyon which they use as their playground. Visitors are advised to walk behind the tigers.
Touching the Tigers
Visitors on the Tiger Temple Tours can walk amongst the tigers once they are in the canyon and have their photographs with them (you will see a lot of these photographs on the web). The tigers do seem to be unnaturally docile, however one should remember that tigers are ‘big cats’ and being so are nocturnal animals so they sleep through half of the day.
One unwelcome question that pops up from time to time is ‘are the animals drugged’ and the answer is undoubtedly no! The foundation’s website http://www.tigertemple.org/Eng/ has all the information you need to know about the tiger temple and will answer uncomfortable questions and will clear your conscience before you book your trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment