A few days ago I discovered one of my limits. We were coming back from the bridge over the river Kwai when our tour bus stopped at the nearby 'Tiger Temple.' This had not been on our day trip tour itinerary. It was an added extra, at an added cost - if you wanted to go in that is.
We got out and the guide told us that the Tiger Temple was a tiger sanctuary run by Buddhist monks, and that for a small fee we could go inside a cage with a tiger and have our photo taken sitting next to it. We shouldn't worry about the tiger ripping our bodies to shreds, we were told, because the monks can control the tigers 'only with their hand.' I was looking around me as this was being said, and noticed simultaneously a sign by the entrance saying, 'clothing colours which can enrage tigers,' one of which was the colour of my shirt.
That was it. I was out of the queue.
'What? You no want photo with tiger?' I was asked. 'No I don't,' I answered a bit freaked out, 'and I'm not paying for this either.' I went over to the cafe area in the car park and sulked for 10 minutes as everyone else went in.
I'm sorry, but you expect me to go inside a cage with a tiger, protected only by a monk armed with...Buddhist Law??? It's not happening.
It was after that I realised what was probably going on. The rest of the group came back about 15 minutes later, fairly appalled, saying that the tiger had been unconscious and seemed to have been drugged. In a heartbeat my complete cowardice turned into a moral stand. 'You were so right to refuse to go in,' various people started saying, and one guy said, 'you really know how to travel.' Wise after the event I replied confidently, 'I knew there was something up. I knew it.' I didn't. I'd just been terrified of being eaten by a tiger.
3 comments:
Hi Charles...
I guess May-Ling (because of Mailing?!)
Also, about cats...
According to Earl (from yahooligans..)
Section: Cats Generally Can't See Colors
Keeping in mind that your cat evolved from hunters, you can understand why his sense of sight is one of his strongest. But cats are generally considered colorblind.
The retina – the nerve center at the back of the eye – contains cells called cones (responsible for converting light into color) and rods (responsible for black and white). In cats, rods greatly outnumber cones.
Theoretically, color perception is possible since the eye contains some cones, but distinguishing color isn’t necessary for cats. Brightness is far more important. He can see in the dimmest of lights; his eyes can open about three times as wide as the human pupil and let in as much light as possible at the normal “hunting” times of dawn and dusk.
Because of the differences between human and cat retinas, the animals can see using one-sixth of the amount of light people need: At night, for example, objects appear six times brighter to a cat than they do to humans, which helps the animals hunt. In addition to better brightness vision, cats can also detect minute movement, which is easily missed by people - another benefit for a hunter.
Learn something every day, huh?
:-)
Always good when you can change complete cowardice into a moral stand. Highly satisfying.
Good work.
Raj.
Very interesting MZ. I'm still not getting a cage with a tiger though.
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