On my last trip to Thailand, which included several weeks in Cambodia, for some weird reason I could not visit a wat without seeing a cat. And it wasn’t just fleeting glances while wandering through temple compounds, it seemed every time I stopped to take a photograph some damn cat would appear out of the blue and start rubbing its head against my leg demanding attention. Being in a Buddhist sanctuary, I assumed it’s bad form to kick the temple cat. So I spent far too much of my holiday giving into feline demands and scratching their damn heads.

I’m gay. I don’t really care for pussy. And wouldn’t donate a penny to the cause if cats suddenly became an endangered species. I’m not a big fan of cats. It’s not that I hate them. Fried, with the right sauce, they can be quite tasty. But they are selfish creatures. To a cat, the world is all about them. When a cat deigns to approach you, it’s to be petted. Being petted is about them, not about you. Sure, they’ll purr in response to the attention you give them. But that’s like the free drugs pushers hand out at grade schools; it’s motivation to keep you coming back for more; it’s about feeding their habit, not yours.

A dog, on the other hand, approaches you to share its love. It’s all about you. And about how happy the dog is to see you. A dog is all about wanting to make you happy. Cats don’t slobber like dogs do, but most people will happily put up with a dog slobbering all over them, a minor annoyance that’s just part of the dog expressing its joy over your existence. I’m pretty sure when your dog is home alone and thinks about you it starts slobbering and wagging its tail then, too. When a cat is home alone and thinks about you, it remembers something you did to piss it off and then finds one of your shoes to crap in.

Too many of the dogs you run across in Thailand seem to be ownerless. At least I assume the majority of soi dogs lack an owner; their deplorable state leads you to believe they are not cared for. I like dogs and am one of those fools who’ll get down on his knees and trade face with a pitbull I just met on the street. But I tend to steer clear of soi dogs. At best they all have mange. What other skin diseases they carry I don’t want to consider. I don’t usually run across as many cats in Thailand as dogs, but they too all bare signs of infection. And it’d be just like a cat to purr while it’s transferring some weird tropical disease to you: Thanks for petting me, you better get your ass to a hospital. Soon.

But on this trip cats were everywhere. And they were all healthy. I find it just a bit suspicious that while global cooling is changing temperatures across the world and causing an unprecedented amount of floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and tornadoes of epic size and destruction, and while the worlds’ economy is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, cats all of a sudden start appearing with an alarming frequency. It’s not that I’m paranoid, but thought the better course of action to be giving into their demands so I made friends with cats in dozens of temples throughout SE Asia last year. And for the record: no hurricanes, earthquakes or tornadoes of epic size and destruction have occurred where I live, and the economy is doing much better here too, thank you. Just sayin’.

The first few cats I noticed on the trip were at Wat Qunalom in Phnom Penh. A teaching temple with lots of residences within the compound, their presence made sense. I assumed the temple kept cats to control the rat population, the next furry creature below cats on the evolutionary scale. But maybe not. That may not be a Buddhist precept. In any case, we traded stares, but neither of us approached the other. The first temple a cat approached me at was the wat known as Choeung Ek. It’s better known as the Killing Fields. I hadn’t expected the negative energy at the Killing Fields to hit me like it did, so the warm fuzzy kitty purring against my leg was a welcomed bit of kindness. Until I considered how long the cat may have been around, and with dozens of mass graves still filled with bodies on site, just what it may have found to feed itself. An unkind thought perhaps, but above all, that cat was still a Cambodian.

Back in Thailand, Wat Ratchanadda was overflowing with cats. Seemed like every time I turned around another cat was laying in the sun. Possibly dreaming about a vacation to Cambodia and the Killing Fields. Last time I visited the wat, six months before, there were no cats. Now there were dozens. But they had the good sense to keep to themselves. I snapped a few pix, and moved off not thinking much about the temple’s cat population. But by the time I got to Chiang Mai, cats at temples became too frequent of an occurrence to ignore.

Small temples in town that I visit often all of a sudden had cats. And at each at least one headed for me when I was spotted. I made my first pilgrimage to Wat U Mong and standing by the huge chedi, lining up a shot, all of a sudden a cat is rubbing against my leg. The area the chedi is located is up a flight of stone stairs and is a large grassy area surrounded by trees. I had the entire space to myself. Except for the cat. I think it had been laying in wait, anticipating my arrival.

I went to Lamphun, an unplanned excursion to see some trees along the way and two and a half wats in the city. The half wat visit was too short for a feline sighting, but at Wat Kukut, no sooner had I raised my camera and another damn cat appeared, once again making its presence known by secreting its scent on my pant leg. More cats at Wat Phra That Haripunchai, and more again back in town at Wat Chedi Luang where I went to chat with monks and instead got to pet cats. There was even one that thought it deserved my time at the hotel at breakfast. I’ll put up with cat attitude at a wat, but caffeine time in the morning is sacred to me. That cat met my boot. It was a purrfect shot.

The tigers at Tiger Kingdom, I get. But for some reason, house cats have become part of the touri experience in Thailand. I don’t love the country any less because of them, but since they seem to be part of the landscape now, I’ve got to wonder: with all the cats in Thailand these days, why is it you never see Siamese cats? I think TAT is missing out on a surefire touri thrill. They need to round up all the cats, at least at the temples, and replace them with their Siamese cousins. I know touri would be thrilled with the photo op of finding a Siamese cat at a Siamese temple. Or at least on the menu of their favorite Thai food restaurant.