Wat Pa Luang Ta Bua,
popularly known as the Tiger Temple, is the biggest tourist trap of the region. Admission starts at 600 baht per person, but depending on the 'experience' you'd like, goes as high as 5,000 baht. The temple is nowhere to be seen, but the tigers are lounging in a dusty canyon, surrounded by minders in yellow shirts and overseen by a monk off in the corner. When they are not sitting unnaturally still, the tigers are kept in barren concrete cells. You can watch the tigers from a distance, and when your time comes, the minders will take your camera and snap a few photos of you crouching behind the comatose tiger, as well as a few close-ups of the tigers themselves.
You can also pay a 1,000 baht extra for a "special" photo with a tiger, where you can have the head of a semi-unconscious one put in your lap. It's all kind of odd, but the pictures will certainly wow your friends, unless they value animal welfare over souvenirs in which case you might seriously disappoint them. Unverified reports of a tourist being seriously mauled by the tigers abound, regardless of which it is only common sense to not annoy tigers. A few years of domestication will not erase centuries of innate wildness.
Also, you are NOT allowed to wear bright yellow, pink or orange tee-shirts, or they will not allow you inside. You must also sign a release form, just in case you're harmed by the many animals at the temple (there are also water buffalo and deer roaming the parkland). You MUST bring your own camera, because the trainers do not have any.
The tiger temple is off the road heading to Sai Yok. you can take a bus heading towards Sai Yok or Sangkhlaburi. There is a sign about 1 km before the Tiger Temple. Once you see the sign make a big fuss and run up to the front of the bus and motion that you want to get off. The temple itself is about 1-2 km down the side road. To get back to kanchanburi, you can either try to flag down a bus on the main road going towards Kanchanaburi or you might be able to buy a ride with one of the minibus tour groups. You could also rent a motorbike and ride there yourself.
In the past, reports from Tiger Temple volunteer workers and staff revealed that the tigers were maltreated and abused by the abbot of the temple and his staff. A 2008 report from the British conservation group Care for the Wild International (CWI) reveals disturbing evidence of animal abuse and illegal tiger trafficking at the temple. It has since been revealed that the animals are drugged on a daily basis, although there are some travellers reporting otherwise. There are numerous conservation and animal welfare groups campaigning against the controversial Tiger Temple, which has a track record of ill-treatment of the animals, including tigers disappearing in trucks during the night.
If you'd like to ignore the warnings of many travellers before you, as well as the reports of conservation experts, then to get to the temple, you can approach a Song thaew (Tuk Tuk) driver at the bus terminal and ask to hire him for an afternoon as you should best visit the temple then and not in the morning. He should charge about 700 baht for a hire from 13:00-18:00hrs.
