Liars and Tigers and Boars, Oh My! - Day 2 cont.

So back to the tigers...

After we walked the medium-size tigers away from the pavilion, and Blake recovered from his near-death experience (ok, so maybe that's a little exaggerated...), we got to help "bathe" some of the larger tigers. Which basically means we rubbed a little soap on them and sprayed them with hoses while the volunteers distracted them with toys, milk, and/or chicken.  And interestingly enough, they smelled not unlike wet dog.

After the baths, they let us into a fenced play area.  In this area were trees and a rock formation with a small water feature.  They gave us all bamboo poles with different things tied to the ends, like empty dog food bags or colorful rags.  Then they let the tigers in!

I have to admit, it was a little unnerving.  Less because of the dozen or so tigers, and more because of all the people with poles, shaking them vigorously much too close to you and other people.  But there were so many volunteers in there with us, almost as many volunteers as tourists.  And they worked really hard to keep people from putting other people in the line of fire. 

And they were so much fun!  They ran and jumped and frolicked and flipped and plotted and tried to sneak up on their "prey."  There were so many people waving so many different things, it was actually harder than you would think to attract a tiger's attention.  Blake actually got pretty good at it.  Guess I shouldn't be surprised, since he's always able to do the same with our Mo cat and his toys, even though I can't ever seem to do it quite right.

After the playtime, we got an opportunity to take pictures with the biggest cats there.

And then we got to take turns "walking" (i.e., holding a leash attached to a very large tiger while he walks wherever he wants and you walk with him, unless he decides to run or chase something, in which case you let the leash go) a large tiger down to this old quarry, which they've turned into an exercise area for the tigers.  The workers took all of our pictures with our own cameras while we did this...

...and Blake and I got lucky and got a bunch of shots...

 ...because the tiger had to go to the bathroom right as it was our turn.

I mean, c'mon, look at the face.  You know what he's doing.  Such concentration!  I almost want to get him a magazine or something.

And let's just look at that first shot of Blake and me with him again.

 Yeah... You see the red circle?  That's tiger poo.

Thankfully, we didn't step in any.

Eventually we all made it to the old quarry, where several of the larger tigers were chained up, waiting for their playtime.

 You see the worker giving water to that one tiger and kissing him on the head?  I wish!  Amazing!

The workers ushered us into a small area surrounded by about chest high chain link fence.  Which actually was pulled back in one corner.  I tried not to think about why that was.

And then they let the tigers off the chains and ushered them into the play area, which was dominated by a water feature large enough for them all to spread out in.  The workers all had bamboo poles, most of which had bags or other dangling, tiger-tempting objects attached to them, and they would wave the poles around just like we tourists had all done with the younger tigers earlier.

It was quite hot, even though it wasn't even noon yet, and some of the tigers simply enjoyed lying in the water.

And some tigers played with each other.

While others ran and jumped and tried to catch the objects on the workers' sticks.

And sometimes they succeeded...

And some of the workers were crazy enough to get the stick back!  If one of those guys had taken a stick and bag from me, I would have let him keep it!

This one guy was absolutely CRAZY!  He would get in the water and walk around in there with them, while the other workers at least kept some distance between them.  One time he even rode the back of one for a few seconds!

I think he probably knew about 10 English words.  And 4 of them were, "I am tiger man!"  He had a huge tiger tattoo on his chest, and yeah, he was pretty much nuts.  He made me think of the Disney cartoon I watched as a child, Jungle Book.  I imagine that's what Mowgli would have looked like all grown up.  And Shere Khan, come to think of it.

Anyway, after the playtime, sadly, our time at the Tiger Temple was over, and we had to leave.  It was such an amazing experience to get to spend just a few short hours with these magnificent animals.  I will always remember that extraordinary day.

Tiger Temple is so far from Bangkok that the tour companies encourage you to combine something else in the area for your tour.  You could choose from a few different places or experiences, including riding elephants or viewing wild monkeys, but we chose the Erawan Falls, which are a series of 7 different water falls.

The 6th and 7th falls were pretty high climbs, and by this point of the day we were fairly exhausted.  So we only made it to the first 5 falls.  But they were still beautiful.

And after the falls, we dropped the guide back off and headed straight back to Bangkok.  Well, we did make one stop at 7-11.  Thailand has fountain cokes in their convenience stores.  Fountain cokes!  With ice!  You just don't understand.  And I know you're not supposed to drink the water in Thailand, and ice is made from the water.  But we just drank our coke really, really fast before the ice could melt.  I mean, some things are just worth the risk.

And 3-1/2 to 4 hours later, through achingly slow traffic, we finally made it back to our hotel and passed out incredibly early after our truly spectacular day.