After a late night thanks to the three live bands in the street bars directly behind the hostel (and my rear window doesn't shut completely), I got up fairly early to eat breakfast and set off to the zoo outside the city. I made my own toast and coffee and ordered some good old museli and fruit which is always nice!
Randomly Marnie, who I met at Elephants & Friends came over and said hi! We'd picked the same guest house... thanks to recommendations in the guide books. She is off to China next week and is waiting for her visa application to clear. She went off to do some rock climbing for the day and I left for the zoo.
It only took ten minutes to get there and once I'd got inside it was clear that I was the only visitor there, and it stayed like that until about 10am!! Staff everywhere all smiling and saying hello... lol.
The place is huge, and the signage is near non-existant and when there is some, it is in Thai! Because there were no people yet, they were not running their bus service which shuttles people around this huge place all day. I kind of intended to do it all on foot anyway.
They are undertaking a lot of building work, including a huge complex in the middle of the park. They also have a lot of newly finshed enclosures and the standard of the place is pretty good really. There were plenty of blank white signs at each enclosure, which must mean they are being updated too (hopefully with English for future guests!).
The health of the animals was impressive too, although the Elephants didn't look as healthy as those at the farm I visited in Kanchanaburi, and the Aquarium needs some work although the huge Mekong catfish they have are immense when you can see them through the algae!
The giraffe enclosure was really big and they had a platform that you could walk right out into the middle on and the giraffe could very nearly reach you on it... really cool for pictures.
They have plenty of big cats including Tigers, Leopards, Jaguars and white Tigers (who were mostly hiding from view). The brand new tiger enclosure looked good and they are due to move in this week. I managed to see feeding time which was good, and they make the cats work for their food by climbing or jumping to get it, which is also entertaining for us of course! I did take some more small snippets of video, which I'll upload when I find a more reliable internet cafe, this one likes to crash randomly, although it is fast when it works... sigh.
The zoo also has two giant Panda's on loan from China, housed indoors in very nice temperature controlled buildings with tons of security guards. No flash photography is allowed and you have to pay extra to see them, but it was so worth it. They are beautiful creatures and were amusing to watch lounging and chomping on thier bamboo shoots. The female was laid on her back eating at one point, so blase'. The much bigger male was resting on top of his favourite perch, obviously had a tough day so far... lol
In the walk-through aviary there were some interesting sights... a male peacock flirting with a female and some pretty wierd looking birds making a lot of noise.
They have an island for Orangutans, although after three visits back to it I only caught a glimpse of one huge one who just looked like he wanted to go back indoors, lol.
There were also two brand new Red Pandas which had just been released into their new enclosure this morning and were skulking around it sniffing their way like a cat in a new home. They are an amazing colour and their new home is really nice, they should be happy Pandas once settled in.
Their Asian Rhino wasn't up to much, he stayed submerged for the whole time I was in that area, as I went to see hmi lots of times. They had plenty of crocs, including some cayman crocs. Also lots of lizards, terrapins and snakes, although their glass was too grubby to take nice pictures of them, this one of a freshly shed Boa came out ok though.
I nearly stuck my head in a pretty big spiders web at one point, which had a bad looking spider in the middle of it, with about a 2 inch body and long thin legs. I tried to photograph it but the lighting wasn't good and the black and yellow colours didn't come out really... glad I didn't get a close look! Yikes!
By the time I'd finished there it was mid afternoon and I'd walked miles, so I'm going to go up the mountain tomorrow to see the Wat Doi Sutherp, which is the most important religious site in the north of Thailand apparently, so must be worth a visit.
I've cancelled the trek I had my name down for, partly because no other names were on the list yet, but also because they all include an elephant 'ride' in a metal seat thing which is on their back. I can't bring myself to do it after my week at Elephants & Friends. I must be an elephant snob huh! I just don't think they should be exploited in that way, and hope they are better looked after than I hear...
I'll book myself into a cookery course for the day after tomorrow, and Marnie recommended one that she'd been too which is cool. They do a course at the place I'm staying, but as I'm finding with a lot of the bigger and more frequently recommended in the guide book places, they are much less friendly places and seem to just 'process' you as they host so many people. The people staying at them are nice enough, but you just don't get as nice a feeling from the staff in my opinion, as you do in a smaller more independantly run place.
Anyhoo... off for a well earned shower and a beer!
Ciao! ;)
