Monks at Thailand’s Tiger Temple walk the Eightfold Path with tigers trotting placidly at their heels, but no salvation is in sight for the unfortunate cats
Our hulking air-conditioned tour bus veers off the highway about three hours west of Bangkok and pulls into a parking lot that overnight rains have turned into a trampled morass of tire treads and puddles. The countryside is verdant with forest and plantation but here it is oddly arid, with scant undergrowth. A house-sized concrete sculpture of a tiger and its cub greets us. High walls rise behind the rusty-smelling wrought-iron gate, outside which stalls selling fried snacks, cold drinks and lottery tickets are decorated with cramped cages in which dolorous myna birds and thumb-sized finches are confined, their songs long stolen. Banteng, deer and wild boar, along with peacocks and buffalos, roam untethered inside. An animal smell is afoot, the kind you’d find at a small-town zoo – a sad odor of decayed food, unkempt fur and beastly excrement. The spoor of derelict captivity in which all hope of freedom has dissolved. My heart sinks in it.
