Saturday, August 26, 2006

Big kitty

Ian loves tigers. So when we saw an opportunity to sign up and visit a tiger sanctuary in Kanchanaburi, we took it. This sanctuary began because a monk had took in a cub whose parents were killed by poachers. The original cub died but more came in later, same stories. Soon after, locals begin bringing in animals of all kinds.


When we got to the sanctuary, we see a sign saying, no hot colours! If you wear red, orange, pink, or yellow, you will not be allowed into see the tigers and you can't take a photo with them! No one told me this! Here I was wearing a yellow shirt. Great. I can't believe this. I asked them and they said it would be ok. Hm... why have a sign up if you're going to let people in anyways? I don't know about this.

We went in and I was getting a little nervous. Didn't know what to expect. We eventually got to the canyon and saw maybe nine tigers in all. They were all chained up, thank goodness but it was quite the amazing sight. No bars between you and them. Just chains you hope will hold.

They tell you to leave you bags, give them your camera and they'll take you around and take photos of you with the tigers. Apparently, if the tigers were to take a swipe at you, it'd be easy to hook you with the bag on. Great.

I give them our camera and a guy holds my hand and leads me in. He puts me behind this giant tiger and tells me I can touch him while another person takes my photo. I'm thinking, are you MAD? You want me to touch this thing that can turn our around in a second and bite my head off?! I was terrified. Didn't know if I could handle being so close to these creatures. I kept thinking, they can smell my fear. You can really see it too in the photo.

The guy then takes my hand again and leads me to another tiger. This tiger was chewing on some bones so he was a bit preoccupied. This time, I touched him. Not so bad. Kinda cute. I loosened up.

Guy takes me again and leads me to a third tiger. I'm much more comfortable now. These kitties aren't so bad. Sure they growl alot and can eat me up but they're kinda cute too. :)

Once was enough for me though. Ian went in twice for photos, he loved it!

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