Next On Our List To Visit,

was the tiger temple,

the story goes that some one gave a tiger to a local monk to look after, and then he was given more, so people flocked to look at the tigers, so did we, but the temple is staffed by a load of volunteer American and UK 'do-gooders', at first of our party of seven, five of us were denied entry, the creep from America said that the sight of elbows and knees would be disrespectful to the monks, after a brief exchange he stated that only Diana was disrespectful as she showed elbows and knees,

she could only go in if she bought a 'T' shirt and trousers from them, the 'T' shirt if you look in the pictures still did not cover her elbows, but I was told this was a respectful 'T' shirt, a Singaporean lady told Steve and myself that their party had also been denied entrance unless they paid 500 baht for the entrance fee (200 baht for locals) plus the 500 baht for a 'T' shirt and trousers, all of the group left in total disgust, before any one says any thing this is a Thai religious thing, ladies are not allowed in Thai temples if they show elbows or knees, for us no problem with that, but in every other temple I have been to from Chang Mai to Hau Hin the temple AT NO CHARGE has loaned suitable clothing to visiting guests, not so here, keep your wallet handy!

after dressing Diana we went in to the temple grounds, the first thing we saw was a peacock, and a group of water buffaloes keeping cool in their pond,

the head monk, is it abbot? I am not being disrespectful here, (just that I do not know what title to apply), took us around with him and one of the tigers,

we all then went down to what is called the 'Canyons'

everybody ques up to be taken individually around the sleeping tigers,

Diana petted this one,

and huge it was too,

there were lots of others,

but thankfully for Diana they were all fast asleep,

every one was taken around the sleeping tigers one at a time,

if you look carefully you will see Steve behind the fourth sleeping tiger on the left,

just there,

is he holding hands?

no, but it is so dangerous in there you can not be to careful,

we then went to see a couple of baby tigers,

and very cute he looked to,

if only I could afford the food I would like one for Diana,

Steve and Kai pose by a baby tiger,

a close up, what big paws they have,

well we had to have a picture taken as well!

and Steve too with a monk in the background,

and Diana,

there were two monks looking after this big cat,

the tiger seemed to be totally at ease,

he even had his own pillow!

Steve, the tiger and the two monks,

Diana was still dressed in the height of fashion, at this point we decided to make our way to Hellfire Pass, so back to the mini bus and off we go!