Tigers in Thailand May 13, 2009
Posted by Martin in : Thailand, Travel Tips , trackbackI feel obligated to write a post about The Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi, Thailand because a lot of travelers have mentioned how excited they are to go there.
I’ve been there once and really do not recommend going it.
Here are my reasons:
- It’s a long way from Kanchanaburi center. I may be wrong but I’d guess about 2 hours each way. Seeing as it takes 2 hours to get to Kanchanaburi in the first place, it makes for a long day of travel.
- I didn’t feel the tigers were being taken good care of. Many were kept in small cages and seemed too hot.
- You and your tiger get about 1 minute total contact time. Both of you are ushered into the center of a yard. You meet, you face a camerama, he snaps your photo and then you’re both led away.
- Once you see a few sleepy big tigers, and some cute baby tigers in cages there’s nothing more to see.
Instead, there are two far better places to go:
1) Sri Racha Tiger Zoo
Located close to Pattaya you get much more contact with the tigers. Last time we went we were able to enter a room full of caged tigers of various ages and we could bottle feed them for a very nominal fee. Also there are other animals there as well as a few shows (The multilingual pig that does maths is great).
2) Safari World
Safari world is about 200 baht by taxi from central Bangkok.
There are usually some baby tigers around for photo-shoots and also you get to see them in the pseudo-safari environment too. A while ago we saw them frolicking in the water which caught us by surprise.
This is perhaps Thailand’s largest zoo so there’s a lot to see and do beyond just the tigers. We went there a few weeks ago and, although we go at least annually it’s still a lot of fun.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
In The Tiger Temple’s defense, you are more likely to get to stroke a full-sized tiger there than at the other places but this isn’t guaranteed and it probably would be just one stroke before you’re led away.
It’s possible that The Tiger Temple’s improved a lot in the last 6 years but I doubt it. IF anybody does visit there and disagrees with my opinion then please do get in touch and I’ll update this post.
Comments»
no comments yet - be the first?