by Juliet Coombe, as first seen in House & Garden. Juliet Coombe took a walk on the wild side and met Thailand's Doctor Doolittle at Pha Luang Ta Bua temple near Kanchanaburi Town.
The three hour journey from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi Town on the River Kwai is fairly dull, but once I hit the 40 kilometres of dirt road leading up to the temple, the terrain transforms, becoming sparsely inhabited and inhospitable. Vertical plateau's of rock soar hundreds of metres above me, breaking up the flat lowland forest wilderness. A dust storm whips up and a few minutes later dies down, revealing jagged outcrops huddled together before a continuous range of rolling blue-green hills. This pristine jungle, the perfect habitat for the few remaining tigers, is also rich in bird life. Sadly most of the tigers have been killed or poached by armed bandits and smugglers. Local farming practices are also encroaching on the last remaining rain forest, threatening their homeland. Thirty years of war fare following 1945 have devastated huge swathes of Thailand's prime forest. Yet that which remains, is hauntingly beautiful.
I pull back the Iron Gate, nervously giggling as I make my way into a
well-forested area. A young novice who follows me into the sanctuary, tells
me that the complex is made up of 70 hectares of land. Delving further into
the bush, I bump into a smiling robust 50 year old, who through no choice of
his own has turned his spiritual centre into a refuge for seven frisky
Indochina tigers. He explains that he was ironically born in the year of the Ten minutes later we come across an opening in the forest. I am amazed to see one tiger after another emerge from their cages. The monastery monks take the group of tigers on a 500-metre walk to a huge hilly sandpit area, where they laze round in the sun on the border of Thailand and Burma near Tong Pha Phum National Park. Their leads are removed and these potential man-eaters are left to play or suckle on a finger or two of one of the many monks that live in the monastery grounds. "Go on let the tiger suck on your fingers," says the mischievous Abbot. Feeling brave, I get closer. To my surprise, instead of having my head bitten off, the tiger rolls over like an oversized domestic cat. It just wants its tummy tickled. As I play with them in turn, the abbot explains that on average, the tigress have a gestation period from 14 - 15 weeks and usually has three cubs per litter. However on one occasion, an exceptional seven were recorded! It is thought that a tigress striped tail and the large spots behind her ears act as beacons for cubs to follow her through the dense undergrowth. "I am hoping with proper funding we can research these tigers and perhaps release their young back into the wild." Even as I drive away from the place I am in awe of this extraordinary man. He has been blessed with supernatural powers that the locals describe as a blend of Dr Doolittle, Tarzan and Buddha. His words of warning are ones we need to heed, because statistics show that round the world an average of one tiger is being killed every day. Today, estimates suggest only 6,000 remain. The Abbot insists, "unless something is done now, the two hundred wild tigers that remain in Thailand will soon be gone. Extinction is forever." Click on the photos to enlarge
World Travel Service ALL–DAY TIGER TEMPLE, RIVER KWAI AND WAR MUSEUM
2-DAY TIGER TEMPLE AND RIVER KWAI TOUR |
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