Tiger Temple at Kanchanaburi

Giant Tiger Statue at Kanchanaburi

If you only have not much time in one day, you might ask where the interesting places to visit in Kanchanaburi are.

One of tourist attractions I recommended is Tiger Temple or Wat Pa Luangta Bua Yannasampanno. It is located in Sai Yok District, only 37 kilometers from Kanchanaburi city or about half an hour drive.

Last month, I got a chance to take a group of Indian tourists to Tiger Temple. It was the first time for me to get there too. After the driver turned right from the main street to the sign of Tiger Temple, I saw a large tiger statue from faraway as a sign of the temple. Just about 5 kilometers from the main street, we were at the place where we needed to buy tickets. We arrived at almost 2 o’clock in the afternoon, where it was a busy hour. For this reason, it was so crowded that I was stunned from the picture in front of me for a while; vans, cars and private taxis came to drop their tour groups, a lot of tourists walking around and being noisy everywhere.

A long line of tourists waiting for taking photos with tigers

Then I could fix it out that some of tourists didn’t know the rule of the temple. This temple does not allow to wear inappropriate clothes because it is the religious compound, ladies should not wear open shoulders or tank top, as well as, the length of pants or skirt should be down to the knee. Also, the temple does not allow wearing red or bright orange clothes, strong perfume, flowing skirts or scarves and clothing made out of materials that making noise. This is because they can annoy tigers and some other animals.

A lady who sold a ticket checked clothes of my group strictly and told me two of the ladies in our group needed to change clothes because one of them wore red shirt and the other wore sleeveless shirt. Anyway, they provided T-shirts for sell at the next window where the shirt price was 300 Baht.

Selling tickets start from noon to 3.15 pm. At this time, I bought tickets 600 Baht per person (it is the same price for the children in any ages).  After getting tickets, each person had to write name, e-mail address and signed the signature on the ticket to agree in terms and conditions of the temple.

Taking photos with a tiger

We walked from the entrance gate about 500 meters to Tiger Canyon. It was already a long line of  tourists waiting for taking pictures with tigers. From 1pm to 3.30pm the tigers stayed in the canyon and at approximately 3.30pm the tigers were taken back. There was a fence separated photo section and waiting zone. Here, I saw a number of tourists experiencing taking pictures with tigers up close. The staffs took a tourist one by one to get to tigers and took pictures for them. There were about ten tigers were laying on the ground. Tigers were so tame that a staff could set up their head on the lap of tourists for the photo.

Even though, tigers were normally wild predators, at the day I visited they never growled to frighten the tourists. They looked like a big lazy cat at home and welcome to whoever wanted to pet them.       Our group waited about an hour to get pictures because, just as I said earlier, we arrived there a little bit late. Though, my tour group was still excited and showed pictures to each other. They would also have photos to show their friends at home.