petting tigers, originally uploaded by dadapunk80.

We visited an animal sanctuary tended to by Buddhist monks. They keep tigers and let tourists come in to pet them. The laziness of these tigers is beyond comprehension, but a woman who worked there, a foreigner, explained that most of the tigers were born in the sanctuary and have always lived a good life; they are well fed, well looked after and none of them had ever killed in the wild. Basically, they're just very big house cats. But it was still pretty scary to walk around them. I sat between two on a rock and the napping one stretched out its legs and flipped his tail, hitting me. The tiger didn't notice I was there, but to be sure, I moved over to give it more space.