Saturday, February 28, 2009

The end of Tigers

So we have left the Tiger Temple. It is quite sad, so I'm trying not to think about it. We have a boat party tonight with all the staff from the Temple, so it should be a blast! Jarryd and I leave for Cambodia at 5:15am, so that should be interesting. I'm sorry for not putting up any pictures yet, I promise I will, but I have several hundred to sort through first.
This is the beginning of the crazy leg of our trip, so we'll see how everything goes! All is well and Jarryd and I are excited to get traveling again.
Cheers, and enjoy your freezing weather, it's starting to get damn hot over here!

Friday, February 13, 2009

Tiger Temple

Sorry again for the blogging drought. We have been at the Tiger temple for a while and we are having a ball! The people are a lot of fun and it is much more lax than we expected. We get a day off every week and go out for drinks on Tuesdays for a "staff meeting."

A typical day is waking up at 7am and walking the 4 month old cubs (who can be very stubborn) to the temple. A few tourists arrive and feed the 4 months and then the 6 week old cubs show up and get fed as well. The monks say their prayer and then we have breakfast. It really is just early lunch w/ all kinds of different food. We walk the cubs back and then do whatever needs doing. I've done painting, burning hay, making toys, deboning chicken, taking out the trash, all kinds of stuff. Then we get a break from 11 to 12. The tourists start arriving and we are assigned to either the canyon, the 4 month cubs, or the baby cub feeding. Each has it's positives and negatives, but basically the hardest part is dealing with asshole tourists who can be dumb and won't listen. We keep our camera's on us at all times, just in case, and can be smothered in 4 baby tiger cubs whenever we want. At around 4:30 we close and the tourists leave. We feed the eagle and the leopard cat and then eat dinner from thai wisdom, which someone picks up. After that it's free time and we chat, watch movies, or do whatever we want.

We are thoroughly enjoying ourselves and I'm glad this internet is working for now. We even have a hot shower here, a rare luxury. I got a free mattress and fan as well, the lucky first volunteer. Tomorrow someone else gets the same.

Anyway, I will do my best to post some photos soon, it's getting late so I'm off to bed.