Snowleopard's 2024 Road Trip: Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore & Indonesia

[snowleopard]

When one door closes, another one opens. Now that I'm finished my Snowleopard's Mammals: A Lifetime List of Species thread, it's time to begin yet another major piece of writing. I've been fortunate enough to have embarked on a lot of trips to visit zoos over the years, which saw me travel across Australia in 2007 and I began writing about zoos on this site in 2008 once I started touring many famous AZA zoos. Over time, I visited approximately 80% of the accredited zoos in North America and I also went on long trips (mostly sleeping in my vehicle to save money!) to all sorts of non-accredited zoos in Canada and the United States. Between sketchy motels, sleeping in my van, a solid Canadian exchange rate and overall a much cheaper world back in those days, it was possible to see a lot of zoos for a relatively little amount of money. I saw the good, the bad and the ugly, culminating in the numerous decrepit zoos of Wisconsin in 2018 when I questioned what I was doing. I was often breaking new ground for zoo nerds everywhere, as I was walking around zoos that had hardly any online information and at dozens of places I was literally the very first ZooChatter to upload photos onto this site. But some of the garbage zoos I was visiting were very poor, with several zoo owners knowing almost nothing about animals and yet they were keeping exotic creatures in shocking conditions.

After scraping the bottom of the zoological barrel by seeing everything I could manage to visit in North America over a full decade and literally hundreds of zoo visits, I took a huge leap and went on an expensive, month-long trek through the Netherlands (43 zoos), Belgium (10 zoos), France (2 zoos) and Germany (40 zoos) in the summer of 2019, meeting around a dozen fellow zoo nerds along the way and being astonished at the quality of zoos in all directions. Western Europe is full of jaw-dropping mixed-species exhibits, walk-through primate habitats, a rich history of zoological architecture, even printed guidebooks at assorted locations, and it was a phenomenal adventure. Just like I've always done, I mixed things up with days of having a massive single zoo experience with other days of 4 smaller places that could easily be documented in an hour or two. For many reasons, I've been singing the praises of those European zoos ever since as the best of them are as good or better than their North American counterparts, but there's far more history there, far more daring exhibits, and far less roadside junk that's still painfully common in the United States. (My native Canada has mostly closed down those type of places)

After not going anywhere for 3 years, I have now had fantastic zoo trips for 3 consecutive summers. In 2022, I used up my WestJet points and had a quick trip to Scandinavia and marveled at the huge enclosures given to many mammals in Danish, Swedish and Norwegian zoos. In 2023, I had another relatively short trip (by my 'schoolteacher having summers off' standards) to zoos I'd mostly visited several times before. However, it was great to drop in on some quality places up and down the West Coast of the United States and I've now toured more than 60 zoos just in California.

My next plan was to save some money and not go anywhere without my wife and 4 kids in 2024, but back in March my good friend Konstantin Yordanov (aka @twilighter) invited me to join him on a big trip to Southeast Asia. His request came out of nowhere. He and I met up in 2022 for one night and two days of visiting a pair of Swedish zoos (Boras and Nordens Ark) and we had a blast together and we'd kept in touch ever since but his Asian offer was certainly unexpected. Konstantin is a true ‘mammal species hunter’ zoo nerd, often winning the annual ZooChat global challenge, and he was excited to add on a ton of new species in Southeast Asia. I agreed to go and bless Konstantin because he consented to experience an arduous 'Snowleopard Road Trip' and of course that meant visiting around 60 zoos in 3 weeks. It's not for the faint of heart, even with a number of the places being small establishments. Nevertheless, we spent months planning the itinerary, booking our huge number of flights (12 for me!), organizing bus and train tickets, having loads of online Zoom meetings, and logistically it was the most detailed and precise trip I’ve ever undertaken. And that’s saying something. We woke up early, were thoroughly exhausted at the end of each day, but it was a wonderful journey and to see approximately 60 new zoos, 50+ new mammal species and loads of wildlife was magnificent. Not to mention the plethora of world-class aviaries, the many outdoor reptile enclosures due to the warm climate, and the friendly, kind-hearted people everywhere. What a trip it was! Konstantin hit zoo #200 and I hit zoo #600 and it was fantastic travelling as a pair of eagle-eyed zoo nerds who could spot animals in all directions.

This thread will see me review all the zoos, aquariums, bird parks, reptile parks and insect zoos I saw in August of 2024 and I'll also be making observations of visiting Asia for the first time in my life. I've been to 9 Canadian Provinces, all 50 U.S. states, Mexico several times, all over most of Australia, I once spent a few months teaching in Trinidad & Tobago, and I have been to 10 nations in Europe, but I'd never set foot in Asia. I was 48 years old when I began the trip in August of 2024, just a few years older than Konstantin, and both of us felt like we were young again as we didn't take any suitcases and all we had was a backpack each and that was the extent of our luggage. How do the Southeast Asian zoos in the 4 countries we visited compare to zoos I've toured around the world? How did the McDonald's cuisine on this trip compare to past trips? Bring it on...let's rock n' roll!

Here are my last 10 road trip threads with all my reviews.

Snowleopard's 2023 Road Trip (17 zoos in 12 days - California, Arizona, Oregon & Washington):

Snowleopard's 2023 Road Trip: California, Arizona & Oregon

Snowleopard's 2022 Road Trip (24 zoos in 11 days - Denmark, Sweden & Norway):

Snowleopard's 2022 Road Trip: Denmark, Sweden & Norway

Snowleopard's 2019 Road Trip (95 zoos in 33 days - Netherlands, Belgium, Germany & France):

Snowleopard's 2019 Road Trip: Netherlands, Belgium, France & Germany

Snowleopard's 2018 Road Trip (50 zoos in 16 days - mainly Michigan and Wisconsin):

Snowleopard's 2018 Road Trip

Snowleopard's 2017 Road Trip (44 zoos in 17 days - California):

Snowleopard's 2017 Road Trip

Snowleopard's 2015 Road Trip (81 zoos in 24 days - Texas, Arizona and the south):

Snowleopard's 2015 Road Trip

Snowleopard's 2014 Road Trip (65 zoos in 20 days - Minnesota, Illinois and the north):

Snowleopard's 2014 Road Trip

Snowleopard's 2012 Road Trip (50 zoos in 50 days - all over the USA):

Snowleopard's 2012 Road Trip

Snowleopard's 2011 Road Trip (24 zoos in 31 days - California & Arizona):

Snowleopard's 2011 Road Trip

Snowleopard's 2010 Road Trip (39 zoos in 46 days - all over the USA):

Snowleopard's 2010 Road Trip

 

[twilighter]

I am looking forward to experience this unforgettable journey one more time, my friend What a rare privilege!

 

[Nile Hippo Expert]

The number of absolutely insane threads coming out over the last week or two is just absurd, and this one is no different, I’m really excited to hear about your trip @snowleopard and @twilighter!

 

[SusScrofa]

This is gonna be good

 

[NSU42]

Finally catching one of your road trip threads at the start of it! Can't wait to follow along and you might just inspire me to actually do one for my month long trip to South Africa and then Sri Lanka that I took in November. I did not see nearly the number of zoos you did, but 15 in South Africa and 5 in Sri Lanka gives me a decent number I could review in areas of the world without a ton of coverage on here.

 

[Enzo]

When one door closes, another one opens. Now that I'm finished my Snowleopard's Mammals: A Lifetime List of Species thread, it's time to begin yet another major piece of writing. I've been fortunate enough to have embarked on a lot of trips to visit zoos over the years, which saw me travel across Australia in 2007 and I began writing about zoos on this site in 2008 once I started touring many famous AZA zoos. Over time, I visited approximately 80% of the accredited zoos in North America and I also went on long trips (mostly sleeping in my vehicle to save money!) to all sorts of non-accredited zoos in Canada and the United States. Between sketchy motels, sleeping in my van, a solid Canadian exchange rate and overall a much cheaper world back in those days, it was possible to see a lot of zoos for a relatively little amount of money. I saw the good, the bad and the ugly, culminating in the numerous decrepit zoos of Wisconsin in 2018 when I questioned what I was doing. I was often breaking new ground for zoo nerds everywhere, as I was walking around zoos that had hardly any online information and at dozens of places I was literally the very first ZooChatter to upload photos onto this site. But some of the garbage zoos I was visiting were very poor, with several zoo owners knowing almost nothing about animals and yet they were keeping exotic creatures in shocking conditions.

After scraping the bottom of the zoological barrel by seeing everything I could manage to visit in North America over a full decade and literally hundreds of zoo visits, I took a huge leap and went on an expensive, month-long trek through the Netherlands (43 zoos), Belgium (10 zoos), France (2 zoos) and Germany (40 zoos) in the summer of 2019, meeting around a dozen fellow zoo nerds along the way and being astonished at the quality of zoos in all directions. Western Europe is full of jaw-dropping mixed-species exhibits, walk-through primate habitats, a rich history of zoological architecture, even printed guidebooks at assorted locations, and it was a phenomenal adventure. Just like I've always done, I mixed things up with days of having a massive single zoo experience with other days of 4 smaller places that could easily be documented in an hour or two. For many reasons, I've been singing the praises of those European zoos ever since as the best of them are as good or better than their North American counterparts, but there's far more history there, far more daring exhibits, and far less roadside junk that's still painfully common in the United States. (My native Canada has mostly closed down those type of places)

After not going anywhere for 3 years, I have now had fantastic zoo trips for 3 consecutive summers. In 2022, I used up my WestJet points and had a quick trip to Scandinavia and marveled at the huge enclosures given to many mammals in Danish, Swedish and Norwegian zoos. In 2023, I had another relatively short trip (by my 'schoolteacher having summers off' standards) to zoos I'd mostly visited several times before. However, it was great to drop in on some quality places up and down the West Coast of the United States and I've now toured more than 60 zoos just in California.

My next plan was to save some money and not go anywhere without my wife and 4 kids in 2024, but back in March my good friend Konstantin Yordanov (aka @twilighter) invited me to join him on a big trip to Southeast Asia. His request came out of nowhere. He and I met up in 2022 for one night and two days of visiting a pair of Swedish zoos (Boras and Nordens Ark) and we had a blast together and we'd kept in touch ever since but his Asian offer was certainly unexpected. Konstantin is a true ‘mammal species hunter’ zoo nerd, often winning the annual ZooChat global challenge, and he was excited to add on a ton of new species in Southeast Asia. I agreed to go and bless Konstantin because he consented to experience an arduous 'Snowleopard Road Trip' and of course that meant visiting around 60 zoos in 3 weeks. It's not for the faint of heart, even with a number of the places being small establishments. Nevertheless, we spent months planning the itinerary, booking our huge number of flights (12 for me!), organizing bus and train tickets, having loads of online Zoom meetings, and logistically it was the most detailed and precise trip I’ve ever undertaken. And that’s saying something. We woke up early, were thoroughly exhausted at the end of each day, but it was a wonderful journey and to see approximately 60 new zoos, 50+ new mammal species and loads of wildlife was magnificent. Not to mention the plethora of world-class aviaries, the many outdoor reptile enclosures due to the warm climate, and the friendly, kind-hearted people everywhere. What a trip it was! Konstantin hit zoo #200 and I hit zoo #600 and it was fantastic travelling as a pair of eagle-eyed zoo nerds who could spot animals in all directions.

This thread will see me review all the zoos, aquariums, bird parks, reptile parks and insect zoos I saw in August of 2024 and I'll also be making observations of visiting Asia for the first time in my life. I've been to 9 Canadian Provinces, all 50 U.S. states, Mexico several times, all over most of Australia, I once spent a few months teaching in Trinidad & Tobago, and I have been to 10 nations in Europe, but I'd never set foot in Asia. I was 48 years old when I began the trip in August of 2024, just a few years older than Konstantin, and both of us felt like we were young again as we didn't take any suitcases and all we had was a backpack each and that was the extent of our luggage. How do the Southeast Asian zoos in the 4 countries we visited compare to zoos I've toured around the world? How did the McDonald's cuisine on this trip compare to past trips? Bring it on...let's rock n' roll!

Here are my last 10 road trip threads with all my reviews.

Snowleopard's 2023 Road Trip (17 zoos in 12 days - California, Arizona, Oregon & Washington):

Snowleopard's 2023 Road Trip: California, Arizona & Oregon

Snowleopard's 2022 Road Trip (24 zoos in 11 days - Denmark, Sweden & Norway):

Snowleopard's 2022 Road Trip: Denmark, Sweden & Norway

Snowleopard's 2019 Road Trip (95 zoos in 33 days - Netherlands, Belgium, Germany & France):

Snowleopard's 2019 Road Trip: Netherlands, Belgium, France & Germany

Snowleopard's 2018 Road Trip (50 zoos in 16 days - mainly Michigan and Wisconsin):

Snowleopard's 2018 Road Trip

Snowleopard's 2017 Road Trip (44 zoos in 17 days - California):

Snowleopard's 2017 Road Trip

Snowleopard's 2015 Road Trip (81 zoos in 24 days - Texas, Arizona and the south):

Snowleopard's 2015 Road Trip

Snowleopard's 2014 Road Trip (65 zoos in 20 days - Minnesota, Illinois and the north):

Snowleopard's 2014 Road Trip

Snowleopard's 2012 Road Trip (50 zoos in 50 days - all over the USA):

Snowleopard's 2012 Road Trip

Snowleopard's 2011 Road Trip (24 zoos in 31 days - California & Arizona):

Snowleopard's 2011 Road Trip

Snowleopard's 2010 Road Trip (39 zoos in 46 days - all over the USA):

Snowleopard's 2010 Road Trip

Finally! I'm glad I can take part on it as you write! Been having a good read through your directories the last few months.

Do you have a list of the North American AZA facilities you have yet to visit? I am quite most are newly-accredited a maybe a few others are in places far from British Columbia...

 

[Panda_Fan]

When one door closes, another one opens. Now that I'm finished my Snowleopard's Mammals: A Lifetime List of Species thread, it's time to begin yet another major piece of writing. I've been fortunate enough to have embarked on a lot of trips to visit zoos over the years, which saw me travel across Australia in 2007 and I began writing about zoos on this site in 2008 once I started touring many famous AZA zoos. Over time, I visited approximately 80% of the accredited zoos in North America and I also went on long trips (mostly sleeping in my vehicle to save money!) to all sorts of non-accredited zoos in Canada and the United States. Between sketchy motels, sleeping in my van, a solid Canadian exchange rate and overall a much cheaper world back in those days, it was possible to see a lot of zoos for a relatively little amount of money. I saw the good, the bad and the ugly, culminating in the numerous decrepit zoos of Wisconsin in 2018 when I questioned what I was doing. I was often breaking new ground for zoo nerds everywhere, as I was walking around zoos that had hardly any online information and at dozens of places I was literally the very first ZooChatter to upload photos onto this site. But some of the garbage zoos I was visiting were very poor, with several zoo owners knowing almost nothing about animals and yet they were keeping exotic creatures in shocking conditions.

After scraping the bottom of the zoological barrel by seeing everything I could manage to visit in North America over a full decade and literally hundreds of zoo visits, I took a huge leap and went on an expensive, month-long trek through the Netherlands (43 zoos), Belgium (10 zoos), France (2 zoos) and Germany (40 zoos) in the summer of 2019, meeting around a dozen fellow zoo nerds along the way and being astonished at the quality of zoos in all directions. Western Europe is full of jaw-dropping mixed-species exhibits, walk-through primate habitats, a rich history of zoological architecture, even printed guidebooks at assorted locations, and it was a phenomenal adventure. Just like I've always done, I mixed things up with days of having a massive single zoo experience with other days of 4 smaller places that could easily be documented in an hour or two. For many reasons, I've been singing the praises of those European zoos ever since as the best of them are as good or better than their North American counterparts, but there's far more history there, far more daring exhibits, and far less roadside junk that's still painfully common in the United States. (My native Canada has mostly closed down those type of places)

After not going anywhere for 3 years, I have now had fantastic zoo trips for 3 consecutive summers. In 2022, I used up my WestJet points and had a quick trip to Scandinavia and marveled at the huge enclosures given to many mammals in Danish, Swedish and Norwegian zoos. In 2023, I had another relatively short trip (by my 'schoolteacher having summers off' standards) to zoos I'd mostly visited several times before. However, it was great to drop in on some quality places up and down the West Coast of the United States and I've now toured more than 60 zoos just in California.

My next plan was to save some money and not go anywhere without my wife and 4 kids in 2024, but back in March my good friend Konstantin Yordanov (aka @twilighter) invited me to join him on a big trip to Southeast Asia. His request came out of nowhere. He and I met up in 2022 for one night and two days of visiting a pair of Swedish zoos (Boras and Nordens Ark) and we had a blast together and we'd kept in touch ever since but his Asian offer was certainly unexpected. Konstantin is a true ‘mammal species hunter’ zoo nerd, often winning the annual ZooChat global challenge, and he was excited to add on a ton of new species in Southeast Asia. I agreed to go and bless Konstantin because he consented to experience an arduous 'Snowleopard Road Trip' and of course that meant visiting around 60 zoos in 3 weeks. It's not for the faint of heart, even with a number of the places being small establishments. Nevertheless, we spent months planning the itinerary, booking our huge number of flights (12 for me!), organizing bus and train tickets, having loads of online Zoom meetings, and logistically it was the most detailed and precise trip I’ve ever undertaken. And that’s saying something. We woke up early, were thoroughly exhausted at the end of each day, but it was a wonderful journey and to see approximately 60 new zoos, 50+ new mammal species and loads of wildlife was magnificent. Not to mention the plethora of world-class aviaries, the many outdoor reptile enclosures due to the warm climate, and the friendly, kind-hearted people everywhere. What a trip it was! Konstantin hit zoo #200 and I hit zoo #600 and it was fantastic travelling as a pair of eagle-eyed zoo nerds who could spot animals in all directions.

This thread will see me review all the zoos, aquariums, bird parks, reptile parks and insect zoos I saw in August of 2024 and I'll also be making observations of visiting Asia for the first time in my life. I've been to 9 Canadian Provinces, all 50 U.S. states, Mexico several times, all over most of Australia, I once spent a few months teaching in Trinidad & Tobago, and I have been to 10 nations in Europe, but I'd never set foot in Asia. I was 48 years old when I began the trip in August of 2024, just a few years older than Konstantin, and both of us felt like we were young again as we didn't take any suitcases and all we had was a backpack each and that was the extent of our luggage. How do the Southeast Asian zoos in the 4 countries we visited compare to zoos I've toured around the world? How did the McDonald's cuisine on this trip compare to past trips? Bring it on...let's rock n' roll!

Here are my last 10 road trip threads with all my reviews.

Snowleopard's 2023 Road Trip (17 zoos in 12 days - California, Arizona, Oregon & Washington):

Snowleopard's 2023 Road Trip: California, Arizona & Oregon

Snowleopard's 2022 Road Trip (24 zoos in 11 days - Denmark, Sweden & Norway):

Snowleopard's 2022 Road Trip: Denmark, Sweden & Norway

Snowleopard's 2019 Road Trip (95 zoos in 33 days - Netherlands, Belgium, Germany & France):

Snowleopard's 2019 Road Trip: Netherlands, Belgium, France & Germany

Snowleopard's 2018 Road Trip (50 zoos in 16 days - mainly Michigan and Wisconsin):

Snowleopard's 2018 Road Trip

Snowleopard's 2017 Road Trip (44 zoos in 17 days - California):

Snowleopard's 2017 Road Trip

Snowleopard's 2015 Road Trip (81 zoos in 24 days - Texas, Arizona and the south):

Snowleopard's 2015 Road Trip

Snowleopard's 2014 Road Trip (65 zoos in 20 days - Minnesota, Illinois and the north):

Snowleopard's 2014 Road Trip

Snowleopard's 2012 Road Trip (50 zoos in 50 days - all over the USA):

Snowleopard's 2012 Road Trip

Snowleopard's 2011 Road Trip (24 zoos in 31 days - California & Arizona):

Snowleopard's 2011 Road Trip

Snowleopard's 2010 Road Trip (39 zoos in 46 days - all over the USA):

Snowleopard's 2010 Road Trip

This looks like a promising thread! Eagerly waiting for the first review! (and also to see those mistery animals that you mentioned, couldn't stop thinking about them!)

 

[Rizz Carlton]

Looking forward for your and @twilighter experiences and opinions during your visits there, specifically on the Indonesian tour

 

[LegoOwl]

Your trip reports serve as encyclopedias and are ideal for creating your own zoo tour. I just bought airplane tickets to Asia at the end of February. I arrive in Singapure and drive back from Kuala Lumpur. And I cannot wait for your reports, suggestions and hints!

 

[snowleopard]

Travelling from Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada, to Bangkok, Thailand, was a very long trip in itself. I said goodbye to my 4 kids and my wife drove me to the airport in Vancouver on Wednesday night, July 31st, 2024, after we had a great sushi dinner at a nearby restaurant. The drive was 1.5 hours and the dinner was 1 hour and then I had more than 2.5 hours to kill at the airport before departing in the wee hours of the morning on August 1st.

Then it's 1 hour on the tarmac as everyone loads their luggage, a 13 hour flight from Vancouver to Taipei, Taiwan, a 4 hour layover in Taiwan, then a 4 hour flight from Taipei to Bangkok. So, if my memory serves me correctly, after approximately 27 hours after leaving my house I grabbed my sturdy backpack and stepped into the oppressive heat of Bangkok. Even though it's expected, it's nevertheless always a major shock to arrive at a location with a drastic swing in the weather and when I went through customs and strode outside, the humid, tropical air was practically overpowering. It's like being inside a sauna. Fortunately for me, I love hot weather and spend my life counting down until summertime, so it was only going to be a matter of adjustment for my body in the tropics of Southeast Asia. The climate there is not like the 46 degrees Celsius/115 Fahrenheit that I spent 3 days visiting zoos in during my 2023 road trip in Arizona and California, as there it's dry and arid, but in Southeast Asia the weather is humid and like Florida weather on steroids.

I once spent 10 weeks living and teaching in Trinidad & Tobago, an area with a lush tropical climate in the Caribbean, and now I was planning on spending 3 weeks visiting zoos in similar weather conditions. If you don't like sweltering tropical heat or don't do well in such conditions, then avoid Southeast Asia at all costs. A fellow teacher at my school visited Thailand for a wedding a few years ago and he said his whole daily goal was not to embarrass himself and pass out in public at any point during the trip. For him, being maybe 64 years old and a bit overweight, the heat was overwhelming and he struggled to remain upright and lucid. Another person I know, who is fit and young, also felt that the heat was too oppressive to really enjoy in the tropics when she went to Malaysia, but there are others who go to countries near the equator all the time and lap up the sunshine. Everyone is different, but we can all agree that the first impressions of the humidity are staggering.

So, reaching the airport on Wednesday evening, spending most of Thursday in a blur of half dozing and half being startled awake on an airplane, which is an entirely crazy experience all on its own, I arrived in Bangkok on Friday morning exhausted but also enthralled to begin my adventure.

Duration of entire trip: 23 days
Actual number of 'zoo days': 21 days
Total zoos visited: 59 zoos in 4 nations

I'll set aside the trials and tribulations of my two flights, as no one wants to read about crappy airline food and what movies I saw, and I'll officially begin my travelogue on the first day of visiting zoos. There's nothing like lurching off a plane with little to no sleep and proceeding to lug a backpack around in a sauna while feeling as if one is trapped inside an oven.

DAY 1: Friday, August 2nd

I arrived in Bangkok, Thailand, fairly early in the morning and had a day to myself as @twilighter (Konstantin) wasn’t due to arrive until the next day. That setup was how we organized our respective flights, as I was coming from Canada and he was flying in from Norway and we couldn't arrange to meet at exactly the same time at the airport. That would have been perfect, but it just didn't work out with flights and I didn't mind the challenge of navigating around by myself. My full day alone in Bangkok would see me tour FIVE relatively small zoos that Konstantin wasn't that interested in and so he was happy to arrive a day later. I'd have a day to myself and at the end of our 3 weeks then I'd leave a day early and Konstantin would have a day to himself, meaning that we were together for a total of 20 days.

It was nice to have only a backpack, with zero suitcases whatsoever, and be able to stroll past hundreds of passengers congregating at the luggage carousel. That's a major bonus to not having any checked luggage, as I gleefully passed everyone else and had first shot at the line of taxis waiting for tourists. I walked outside, was immediately hit by the toaster-like heat of the tropics and proceeded to choose a taxi. The language barrier wasn’t a major issue, as all the taxi drivers understood basic English, but there wasn't any fluency anywhere and so it was a minor hiccup explaining where I wanted to specifically go. Thankfully, I had printed out my itinerary and having a hard copy on actual paper (maybe a tad old-fashioned for you younger readers!) was genuinely a lifesaver and easier than pulling up a schedule on my iPhone.

The driver who took me the 45 minutes from the airport to my first zoological destination ended up taking me around to all 5 small zoos throughout the day. We haggled back and forth on the price and he was a wild driver who drove at top speeds in all directions, but for him it was a bonus to have the one passenger for what ended up being a very lengthy day. On my big European zoo trips in 2019 and 2022, I rented a vehicle each time and drove all around with no issues, as I did in Australia on the "wrong side of the road" in 2007, but here in Southeast Asia I would never once get behind the wheel. It was a wise decision. This first day in SEA saw a number of crazy traffic jams, with drivers on occasion temporarily going in the wrong direction to speed past cars, pedestrians and animals criss-crossing the roads in perilous situations, and a generally high level of insanity on the roads. This would be a recurring theme for the entire trip, as in some places there was no consideration for basic items such as stop signs, lines on the road separating the lanes, or really any obvious rules of the road. Bangkok has more than 11 million people and at times it appeared that all of them, along with their dogs and cats, were out on the streets regardless of the blistering heat.

Zoo/Aquarium #1: Bangkok Snake Farm (Bangkok, Thailand)

In 1911, the Queen Saovabha Memorial Institute was established, acting as a research facility for the Thai Red Cross Society. A dozen years later, in 1923, the ‘Bangkok Snake Farm’ was opened on the same grounds. For more than a century, this establishment has studied snakes, stocked up on vaccines and antidotes, and showcased snakes to the public in an educational and interesting way. This place is cheap ($7 U.S.) and has lots of rarities that I’d never come across before. There are free paper maps handed out, which is always a nice bonus these days.

There is an outdoor area to the Bangkok Snake Farm, full of enclosed terrariums and open-topped enclosures. When I walked in a few paces, here's what I saw:

Off to the left, one can find an exhibit that looks like an aviary, and yet it’s home to several King Cobras. It must be the largest cobra enclosure I've ever seen.

The wooden boardwalk near the entrance has been constructed around a labyrinth of jungle trees.

A few of the outdoor exhibits are very large, such as this enclosure for Yellow-spotted Keelback Snakes.

This image shows several pit-like cement exhibits, such as the one for Copperhead Rat Snakes in the foreground, that are very good for their inhabitants. How often does one see snakes with quite a bit of space in open-topped, outdoor exhibits in zoos?

There are also some smaller terrariums, as well as a few that look like this one. It held an albino Burmese Python and the area was an adequate size for the snake. A similar one had a Green Anaconda inside.

I like this photo I took of some water snakes, curled up on some coins in a statue of a hand.

The whole outdoor area is very nicely done and it was a real highlight for me to see as my very first zoological visit in Asia. The only downside was my heavy backpack, as I didn't want to leave it behind in the waiting taxi.

Here's the list of 20 species in the outdoor area:

King Cobra
Green Anaconda
Boa Constrictor
Reticulated Python
Burmese Python (albino)
Ball Python
White-lipped Python
Moluccan Python
Yellow-spotted Keelback Snake
Japanese Rat Snake
Banded Rat Snake
Copperhead Rat Snake
Western Hognose Snake
Malayan Pit Viper
Mangrove Pit Viper
Wagler’s Pit Viper
Big-eyed Pit Viper
Tenasserim Pit Viper
Rainbow Water Snake
Jack’s Water Snake

After finishing with the outdoor zone, I next came to the stunning Snake Museum, which is part of the Bangkok Snake Farm and included with admission. It's got a grand entrance:

The Snake Museum is two levels. The bottom floor is essentially a Snake House, with an auditorium for shows and presentations. The top floor has zero live animals, but it has an interesting layout with cool names for the different areas such as Sci-Fi, Crime, Fantasy, Family and Mystery. Here's a map of the Snake Museum:

After being so impressed with the outdoor terrariums, it was disappointing to see the mock-rock displays inside the Snake Museum. The whole first floor is essentially a Snake House, with rows of terrariums and 37 species in total. The great points about this is that there's freezing cold air-conditioning, which helped dry the sweat from my body, and there's some snake species that I'm positive I've never seen before, and everything is very modern and great looking at first...but on closer inspection the enclosures are very basic and rudimentary for the snakes.

There's an Extraction Room with daily presentations:

A darkened auditorium/amphitheatre to sit and watch the shows (I did not see one):

But very basic accommodation for the snakes, such as this Brongersma's Python:

Any really tall person could stretch their hands in and pick up a water snake or two in the open-topped central exhibit.

The list of snakes is mouth-watering for reptile fans, as there's pit vipers and cat-eyed snakes and cobras and kraits and all sorts of delights. I have no idea how many of these I'd never seen before, but I'm guessing that there must be a handful for sure.

Here's the list of 37 species in the indoor area and I saw every single one as there's not really any hiding places inside the terrariums:

King Cobra
Indochinese Spitting Cobra
Golden Spitting Cobra
Monocled Cobra (regular and albino)
Mountain Cobra
Banded Krait
Malayan Krait
Red-headed Krait
Mangrove Pit Viper
Pope’s Green Pit Viper
White-lipped Pit Viper
Big-eyed Pit Viper
Malayan Pit Viper
Omkoi Lance-headed Pit Viper
Ornate Gliding Snake
Long-nosed Whip Snake
Oriental Whip Snake
Kukri Snake
Red-necked Keelback Snake
Yellow-spotted Keelback Snake
Gray Banded Cat-eyed Snake
Green Cat-eyed Snake
Dog-toothed Cat-eyed Snake
Malayan Mangrove Cat-eyed Snake
Red Cat-eyed Snake
Banded Rat Snake
Indochinese Rat Snake
Red-tailed Rat Snake
Ridley’s Stripe-tailed Rat Snake
Copperhead Rat Snake
Burmese Python
Brongersma’s Python
Sunbeam Snake
Red-tailed Pipe Snake
Tentacled Snake
Puff-faced Water Snake
Rainbow Water Snake

There are 8 repeats of species between the indoor and outdoor zones, so overall Bangkok Snake Farm had 49 different snake species in the facility, plus likely more behind the scenes.

Onwards to the upper floor of the Snake Museum, which was brilliantly done. It actually doesn't take very long to tour the top level, but what is there is impressive. For instance, there's a room that's almost artistic in the labeling and presentation of loads of different snake skeletons.

An important issue in Thailand is dealing with snakebites and the museum has a fantastic educational display featuring a dummy who has been struck by some kind of viper.

Another section has snake skins on display:

There's even a wall of model snake embryos:

If you are ever in Bangkok, then I would highly recommend a visit to Bangkok Snake Farm. Of the 5 small zoos I visited on my first day in Thailand, this one was the best and I spent close to an hour and a half there. (It was all downhill after this place...haha ) I'd visited hundreds of zoos beforehand and still saw probably at least a half-dozen snake species I'd never seen before. I enjoyed the focus on around 50 snake species, without Leopard Geckos in sight, let alone a Mara or a Meerkat. The outdoor terrariums, the King Cobra 'aviary' and the educational displays in the Snake Museum are all excellent, with the only downside being the very basic accommodation with little natural substrate for the inhabitants on the lower level of the Snake Museum.

 

[Enzo]

Travelling from Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada, to Bangkok, Thailand, was a very long trip in itself. I said goodbye to my 4 kids and my wife drove me to the airport in Vancouver on Wednesday night, July 31st, 2024, after we had a great sushi dinner at a nearby restaurant. The drive was 1.5 hours and the dinner was 1 hour and then I had more than 2.5 hours to kill at the airport before departing in the wee hours of the morning on August 1st.

Then it's 1 hour on the tarmac as everyone loads their luggage, a 13 hour flight from Vancouver to Taipei, Taiwan, a 4 hour layover in Taiwan, then a 4 hour flight from Taipei to Bangkok. So, if my memory serves me correctly, after approximately 27 hours after leaving my house I grabbed my sturdy backpack and stepped into the oppressive heat of Bangkok. Even though it's expected, it's nevertheless always a major shock to arrive at a location with a drastic swing in the weather and when I went through customs and strode outside, the humid, tropical air was practically overpowering. It's like being inside a sauna. Fortunately for me, I love hot weather and spend my life counting down until summertime, so it was only going to be a matter of adjustment for my body in the tropics of Southeast Asia. The climate there is not like the 46 degrees Celsius/115 Fahrenheit that I spent 3 days visiting zoos in during my 2023 road trip in Arizona and California, as there it's dry and arid, but in Southeast Asia the weather is humid and like Florida weather on steroids.

I once spent 10 weeks living and teaching in Trinidad & Tobago, an area with a lush tropical climate in the Caribbean, and now I was planning on spending 3 weeks visiting zoos in similar weather conditions. If you don't like sweltering tropical heat or don't do well in such conditions, then avoid Southeast Asia at all costs. A fellow teacher at my school visited Thailand for a wedding a few years ago and he said his whole daily goal was not to embarrass himself and pass out in public at any point during the trip. For him, being maybe 64 years old and a bit overweight, the heat was overwhelming and he struggled to remain upright and lucid. Another person I know, who is fit and young, also felt that the heat was too oppressive to really enjoy in the tropics when she went to Malaysia, but there are others who go to countries near the equator all the time and lap up the sunshine. Everyone is different, but we can all agree that the first impressions of the humidity are staggering.

So, reaching the airport on Wednesday evening, spending most of Thursday in a blur of half dozing and half being startled awake on an airplane, which is an entirely crazy experience all on its own, I arrived in Bangkok on Friday morning exhausted but also enthralled to begin my adventure.

Duration of entire trip: 23 days
Actual number of 'zoo days': 21 days
Total zoos visited: 59 zoos in 4 nations

I'll set aside the trials and tribulations of my two flights, as no one wants to read about crappy airline food and what movies I saw, and I'll officially begin my travelogue on the first day of visiting zoos. There's nothing like lurching off a plane with little to no sleep and proceeding to lug a backpack around in a sauna while feeling as if one is trapped inside an oven.

DAY 1: Friday, August 2nd

I arrived in Bangkok, Thailand, fairly early in the morning and had a day to myself as @twilighter (Konstantin) wasn’t due to arrive until the next day. That setup was how we organized our respective flights, as I was coming from Canada and he was flying in from Norway and we couldn't arrange to meet at exactly the same time at the airport. That would have been perfect, but it just didn't work out with flights and I didn't mind the challenge of navigating around by myself. My full day alone in Bangkok would see me tour FIVE relatively small zoos that Konstantin wasn't that interested in and so he was happy to arrive a day later. I'd have a day to myself and at the end of our 3 weeks then I'd leave a day early and Konstantin would have a day to himself, meaning that we were together for a total of 20 days.

It was nice to have only a backpack, with zero suitcases whatsoever, and be able to stroll past hundreds of passengers congregating at the luggage carousel. That's a major bonus to not having any checked luggage, as I gleefully passed everyone else and had first shot at the line of taxis waiting for tourists. I walked outside, was immediately hit by the toaster-like heat of the tropics and proceeded to choose a taxi. The language barrier wasn’t a major issue, as all the taxi drivers understood basic English, but there wasn't any fluency anywhere and so it was a minor hiccup explaining where I wanted to specifically go. Thankfully, I had printed out my itinerary and having a hard copy on actual paper (maybe a tad old-fashioned for you younger readers!) was genuinely a lifesaver and easier than pulling up a schedule on my iPhone.

The driver who took me the 45 minutes from the airport to my first zoological destination ended up taking me around to all 5 small zoos throughout the day. We haggled back and forth on the price and he was a wild driver who drove at top speeds in all directions, but for him it was a bonus to have the one passenger for what ended up being a very lengthy day. On my big European zoo trips in 2019 and 2022, I rented a vehicle each time and drove all around with no issues, as I did in Australia on the "wrong side of the road" in 2007, but here in Southeast Asia I would never once get behind the wheel. It was a wise decision. This first day in SEA saw a number of crazy traffic jams, with drivers on occasion temporarily going in the wrong direction to speed past cars, pedestrians and animals criss-crossing the roads in perilous situations, and a generally high level of insanity on the roads. This would be a recurring theme for the entire trip, as in some places there was no consideration for basic items such as stop signs, lines on the road separating the lanes, or really any obvious rules of the road. Bangkok has more than 11 million people and at times it appeared that all of them, along with their dogs and cats, were out on the streets regardless of the blistering heat.

Zoo/Aquarium #1: Bangkok Snake Farm (Bangkok, Thailand)

In 1911, the Queen Saovabha Memorial Institute was established, acting as a research facility for the Thai Red Cross Society. A dozen years later, in 1923, the ‘Bangkok Snake Farm’ was opened on the same grounds. For more than a century, this establishment has studied snakes, stocked up on vaccines and antidotes, and showcased snakes to the public in an educational and interesting way. This place is cheap ($7 U.S.) and has lots of rarities that I’d never come across before. There are free paper maps handed out, which is always a nice bonus these days.

There is an outdoor area to the Bangkok Snake Farm, full of enclosed terrariums and open-topped enclosures. When I walked in a few paces, here's what I saw:

Off to the left, one can find an exhibit that looks like an aviary, and yet it’s home to several King Cobras. It must be the largest cobra enclosure I've ever seen.

The wooden boardwalk near the entrance has been constructed around a labyrinth of jungle trees.

A few of the outdoor exhibits are very large, such as this enclosure for Yellow-spotted Keelback Snakes.

This image shows several pit-like cement exhibits, such as the one for Copperhead Rat Snakes in the foreground, that are very good for their inhabitants. How often does one see snakes with quite a bit of space in open-topped, outdoor exhibits in zoos?

There are also some smaller terrariums, as well as a few that look like this one. It held an albino Burmese Python and the area was an adequate size for the snake. A similar one had a Green Anaconda inside.

I like this photo I took of some water snakes, curled up on some coins in a statue of a hand.

The whole outdoor area is very nicely done and it was a real highlight for me to see as my very first zoological visit in Asia. The only downside was my heavy backpack, as I didn't want to leave it behind in the waiting taxi.

Here's the list of 20 species in the outdoor area:

King Cobra
Green Anaconda
Boa Constrictor
Reticulated Python
Burmese Python (albino)
Ball Python
White-lipped Python
Moluccan Python
Yellow-spotted Keelback Snake
Japanese Rat Snake
Banded Rat Snake
Copperhead Rat Snake
Western Hognose Snake
Malayan Pit Viper
Mangrove Pit Viper
Wagler’s Pit Viper
Big-eyed Pit Viper
Tenasserim Pit Viper
Rainbow Water Snake
Jack’s Water Snake

After finishing with the outdoor zone, I next came to the stunning Snake Museum, which is part of the Bangkok Snake Farm and included with admission. It's got a grand entrance:

The Snake Museum is two levels. The bottom floor is essentially a Snake House, with an auditorium for shows and presentations. The top floor has zero live animals, but it has an interesting layout with cool names for the different areas such as Sci-Fi, Crime, Fantasy, Family and Mystery. Here's a map of the Snake Museum:

After being so impressed with the outdoor terrariums, it was disappointing to see the mock-rock displays inside the Snake Museum. The whole first floor is essentially a Snake House, with rows of terrariums and 37 species in total. The great points about this is that there's freezing cold air-conditioning, which helped dry the sweat from my body, and there's some snake species that I'm positive I've never seen before, and everything is very modern and great looking at first...but on closer inspection the enclosures are very basic and rudimentary for the snakes.

There's an Extraction Room with daily presentations:

A darkened auditorium/amphitheatre to sit and watch the shows (I did not see one):

But very basic accommodation for the snakes, such as this Brongersma's Python:

Any really tall person could stretch their hands in and pick up a water snake or two in the open-topped central exhibit.

The list of snakes is mouth-watering for reptile fans, as there's pit vipers and cat-eyed snakes and cobras and kraits and all sorts of delights. I have no idea how many of these I'd never seen before, but I'm guessing that there must be a handful for sure.

Here's the list of 37 species in the indoor area and I saw every single one as there's not really any hiding places inside the terrariums:

King Cobra
Indochinese Spitting Cobra
Golden Spitting Cobra
Monocled Cobra (regular and albino)
Mountain Cobra
Banded Krait
Malayan Krait
Red-headed Krait
Mangrove Pit Viper
Pope’s Green Pit Viper
White-lipped Pit Viper
Big-eyed Pit Viper
Malayan Pit Viper
Omkoi Lance-headed Pit Viper
Ornate Gliding Snake
Long-nosed Whip Snake
Oriental Whip Snake
Kukri Snake
Red-necked Keelback Snake
Yellow-spotted Keelback Snake
Gray Banded Cat-eyed Snake
Green Cat-eyed Snake
Dog-toothed Cat-eyed Snake
Malayan Mangrove Cat-eyed Snake
Red Cat-eyed Snake
Banded Rat Snake
Indochinese Rat Snake
Red-tailed Rat Snake
Ridley’s Stripe-tailed Rat Snake
Copperhead Rat Snake
Burmese Python
Brongersma’s Python
Sunbeam Snake
Red-tailed Pipe Snake
Tentacled Snake
Puff-faced Water Snake
Rainbow Water Snake

There are 8 repeats of species between the indoor and outdoor zones, but overall Bangkok Snake Farm had 49 different snake species in the facility, plus likely more behind the scenes.

Onwards to the upper floor of the Snake Museum, which was brilliantly done. It actually doesn't take very long to tour the top level, but what is there is impressive. For instance, there's a room that's almost artistic in the labeling and presentation of loads of different snake skeletons.

An important issue in Thailand is dealing with snakebites and the museum has a fantastic educational display featuring a dummy who has been struck by some kind of viper.

Another section has snake skins on display:

There's even a wall of model snake embryos:

If you are ever in Bangkok, then I would highly recommend a visit to Bangkok Snake Farm. Of the 5 small zoos I visited on my first day in Thailand, this one was the best and I spent close to an hour and a half there. (It was all downhill after this place...haha ) I'd visited hundreds of zoos beforehand and still saw probably at least a half-dozen snake species I'd never seen before. I enjoyed the focus on around 50 snake species, without Leopard Geckos in sight, let alone a Mara or a Meerkat. The outdoor terrariums, the King Cobra 'aviary' and the educational displays in the Snake Museum are all excellent, with the only downside being the very basic accommodation with little natural substrate for the inhabitants on the lower level of the Snake Museum.

Well, I am native to a country with year-round hot and humid weather. I enjoy it most of the time, except when I begin to feel the heat on my scalp (no, I still have a full head of hair) or when zoo animals become inactive because of the warm temperatures. Sometimes foreigners do (righteously) complain about the climate in Rio de Janeiro, but I don't really feel the same way. I guess since you are fond of hotter temperatures, if you ever visit Brazil, you'll surely like it!

I thank God for Brazil not having traffic as chaotic as that of Asia. I mean, we do have many *******s who drive recklessly but it is not nearly as chaotic as that of places like India or Thailand.

As for the Snake Farm, we do have something similar called Instituto Butantan. The person behind its creation, doctor Vital Brazil, was a pioneer in the creation of snake antivenom. He was responsible for first bringing the tuberculosis vaccine to Brazil, way back in the early 20th century. That guy was a hero.

As of 2024, Instituto Butantan is the largest immunobiologicals and biopharmaceuticals producer in Latin America. The institute is also home to the country's largest herptile collection (full of rarities, including over ten species of Bothrops snakes!!!), which is divided between the biological museum and the off display vivarium. The museum itself is mostly indoors, but a few exhibits are also open-topped.

There is also a large rhesus macaque colony on show, but it is not part of the museum itself. A few additional attractions include more museums and a small garden. To be honest, the park in which Butantan is located is a birdwatchers' paradise, full of wildlife. Chlidonias would certainly have some fun there lol, albeit I'm not sure how much of it is actually accessible to the general public.

My local zoo used to be home to a few more open-topped snake enclosures too, although I am quite sure some have been merged to house caimans and turtles. There is, however, still an outdoor exhibit for Burmese and reticulated pythons. I am quite sure an open air anaconda display was also planned but it never left the paper.

 

[Dassie rat]

Travelling from Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada, to Bangkok, Thailand, was a very long trip in itself. I said goodbye to my 4 kids and my wife drove me to the airport in Vancouver on Wednesday night, July 31st, 2024, after we had a great sushi dinner at a nearby restaurant. The drive was 1.5 hours and the dinner was 1 hour and then I had more than 2.5 hours to kill at the airport before departing in the wee hours of the morning on August 1st.

Then it's 1 hour on the tarmac as everyone loads their luggage, a 13 hour flight from Vancouver to Taipei, Taiwan, a 4 hour layover in Taiwan, then a 4 hour flight from Taipei to Bangkok. So, if my memory serves me correctly, after approximately 27 hours after leaving my house I grabbed my sturdy backpack and stepped into the oppressive heat of Bangkok. Even though it's expected, it's nevertheless always a major shock to arrive at a location with a drastic swing in the weather and when I went through customs and strode outside, the humid, tropical air was practically overpowering. It's like being inside a sauna. Fortunately for me, I love hot weather and spend my life counting down until summertime, so it was only going to be a matter of adjustment for my body in the tropics of Southeast Asia. The climate there is not like the 46 degrees Celsius/115 Fahrenheit that I spent 3 days visiting zoos in during my 2023 road trip in Arizona and California, as there it's dry and arid, but in Southeast Asia the weather is humid and like Florida weather on steroids.

I once spent 10 weeks living and teaching in Trinidad & Tobago, an area with a lush tropical climate in the Caribbean, and now I was planning on spending 3 weeks visiting zoos in similar weather conditions. If you don't like sweltering tropical heat or don't do well in such conditions, then avoid Southeast Asia at all costs. A fellow teacher at my school visited Thailand for a wedding a few years ago and he said his whole daily goal was not to embarrass himself and pass out in public at any point during the trip. For him, being maybe 64 years old and a bit overweight, the heat was overwhelming and he struggled to remain upright and lucid. Another person I know, who is fit and young, also felt that the heat was too oppressive to really enjoy in the tropics when she went to Malaysia, but there are others who go to countries near the equator all the time and lap up the sunshine. Everyone is different, but we can all agree that the first impressions of the humidity are staggering.

So, reaching the airport on Wednesday evening, spending most of Thursday in a blur of half dozing and half being startled awake on an airplane, which is an entirely crazy experience all on its own, I arrived in Bangkok on Friday morning exhausted but also enthralled to begin my adventure.

Duration of entire trip: 23 days
Actual number of 'zoo days': 21 days
Total zoos visited: 59 zoos in 4 nations

I'll set aside the trials and tribulations of my two flights, as no one wants to read about crappy airline food and what movies I saw, and I'll officially begin my travelogue on the first day of visiting zoos. There's nothing like lurching off a plane with little to no sleep and proceeding to lug a backpack around in a sauna while feeling as if one is trapped inside an oven.

DAY 1: Friday, August 2nd

I arrived in Bangkok, Thailand, fairly early in the morning and had a day to myself as @twilighter (Konstantin) wasn’t due to arrive until the next day. That setup was how we organized our respective flights, as I was coming from Canada and he was flying in from Norway and we couldn't arrange to meet at exactly the same time at the airport. That would have been perfect, but it just didn't work out with flights and I didn't mind the challenge of navigating around by myself. My full day alone in Bangkok would see me tour FIVE relatively small zoos that Konstantin wasn't that interested in and so he was happy to arrive a day later. I'd have a day to myself and at the end of our 3 weeks then I'd leave a day early and Konstantin would have a day to himself, meaning that we were together for a total of 20 days.

It was nice to have only a backpack, with zero suitcases whatsoever, and be able to stroll past hundreds of passengers congregating at the luggage carousel. That's a major bonus to not having any checked luggage, as I gleefully passed everyone else and had first shot at the line of taxis waiting for tourists. I walked outside, was immediately hit by the toaster-like heat of the tropics and proceeded to choose a taxi. The language barrier wasn’t a major issue, as all the taxi drivers understood basic English, but there wasn't any fluency anywhere and so it was a minor hiccup explaining where I wanted to specifically go. Thankfully, I had printed out my itinerary and having a hard copy on actual paper (maybe a tad old-fashioned for you younger readers!) was genuinely a lifesaver and easier than pulling up a schedule on my iPhone.

The driver who took me the 45 minutes from the airport to my first zoological destination ended up taking me around to all 5 small zoos throughout the day. We haggled back and forth on the price and he was a wild driver who drove at top speeds in all directions, but for him it was a bonus to have the one passenger for what ended up being a very lengthy day. On my big European zoo trips in 2019 and 2022, I rented a vehicle each time and drove all around with no issues, as I did in Australia on the "wrong side of the road" in 2007, but here in Southeast Asia I would never once get behind the wheel. It was a wise decision. This first day in SEA saw a number of crazy traffic jams, with drivers on occasion temporarily going in the wrong direction to speed past cars, pedestrians and animals criss-crossing the roads in perilous situations, and a generally high level of insanity on the roads. This would be a recurring theme for the entire trip, as in some places there was no consideration for basic items such as stop signs, lines on the road separating the lanes, or really any obvious rules of the road. Bangkok has more than 11 million people and at times it appeared that all of them, along with their dogs and cats, were out on the streets regardless of the blistering heat.

Zoo/Aquarium #1: Bangkok Snake Farm (Bangkok, Thailand)

In 1911, the Queen Saovabha Memorial Institute was established, acting as a research facility for the Thai Red Cross Society. A dozen years later, in 1923, the ‘Bangkok Snake Farm’ was opened on the same grounds. For more than a century, this establishment has studied snakes, stocked up on vaccines and antidotes, and showcased snakes to the public in an educational and interesting way. This place is cheap ($7 U.S.) and has lots of rarities that I’d never come across before. There are free paper maps handed out, which is always a nice bonus these days.

There is an outdoor area to the Bangkok Snake Farm, full of enclosed terrariums and open-topped enclosures. When I walked in a few paces, here's what I saw:

Off to the left, one can find an exhibit that looks like an aviary, and yet it’s home to several King Cobras. It must be the largest cobra enclosure I've ever seen.

The wooden boardwalk near the entrance has been constructed around a labyrinth of jungle trees.

A few of the outdoor exhibits are very large, such as this enclosure for Yellow-spotted Keelback Snakes.

This image shows several pit-like cement exhibits, such as the one for Copperhead Rat Snakes in the foreground, that are very good for their inhabitants. How often does one see snakes with quite a bit of space in open-topped, outdoor exhibits in zoos?

There are also some smaller terrariums, as well as a few that look like this one. It held an albino Burmese Python and the area was an adequate size for the snake. A similar one had a Green Anaconda inside.

I like this photo I took of some water snakes, curled up on some coins in a statue of a hand.

The whole outdoor area is very nicely done and it was a real highlight for me to see as my very first zoological visit in Asia. The only downside was my heavy backpack, as I didn't want to leave it behind in the waiting taxi.

Here's the list of 20 species in the outdoor area:

King Cobra
Green Anaconda
Boa Constrictor
Reticulated Python
Burmese Python (albino)
Ball Python
White-lipped Python
Moluccan Python
Yellow-spotted Keelback Snake
Japanese Rat Snake
Banded Rat Snake
Copperhead Rat Snake
Western Hognose Snake
Malayan Pit Viper
Mangrove Pit Viper
Wagler’s Pit Viper
Big-eyed Pit Viper
Tenasserim Pit Viper
Rainbow Water Snake
Jack’s Water Snake

After finishing with the outdoor zone, I next came to the stunning Snake Museum, which is part of the Bangkok Snake Farm and included with admission. It's got a grand entrance:

The Snake Museum is two levels. The bottom floor is essentially a Snake House, with an auditorium for shows and presentations. The top floor has zero live animals, but it has an interesting layout with cool names for the different areas such as Sci-Fi, Crime, Fantasy, Family and Mystery. Here's a map of the Snake Museum:

After being so impressed with the outdoor terrariums, it was disappointing to see the mock-rock displays inside the Snake Museum. The whole first floor is essentially a Snake House, with rows of terrariums and 37 species in total. The great points about this is that there's freezing cold air-conditioning, which helped dry the sweat from my body, and there's some snake species that I'm positive I've never seen before, and everything is very modern and great looking at first...but on closer inspection the enclosures are very basic and rudimentary for the snakes.

There's an Extraction Room with daily presentations:

A darkened auditorium/amphitheatre to sit and watch the shows (I did not see one):

But very basic accommodation for the snakes, such as this Brongersma's Python:

Any really tall person could stretch their hands in and pick up a water snake or two in the open-topped central exhibit.

The list of snakes is mouth-watering for reptile fans, as there's pit vipers and cat-eyed snakes and cobras and kraits and all sorts of delights. I have no idea how many of these I'd never seen before, but I'm guessing that there must be a handful for sure.

Here's the list of 37 species in the indoor area and I saw every single one as there's not really any hiding places inside the terrariums:

King Cobra
Indochinese Spitting Cobra
Golden Spitting Cobra
Monocled Cobra (regular and albino)
Mountain Cobra
Banded Krait
Malayan Krait
Red-headed Krait
Mangrove Pit Viper
Pope’s Green Pit Viper
White-lipped Pit Viper
Big-eyed Pit Viper
Malayan Pit Viper
Omkoi Lance-headed Pit Viper
Ornate Gliding Snake
Long-nosed Whip Snake
Oriental Whip Snake
Kukri Snake
Red-necked Keelback Snake
Yellow-spotted Keelback Snake
Gray Banded Cat-eyed Snake
Green Cat-eyed Snake
Dog-toothed Cat-eyed Snake
Malayan Mangrove Cat-eyed Snake
Red Cat-eyed Snake
Banded Rat Snake
Indochinese Rat Snake
Red-tailed Rat Snake
Ridley’s Stripe-tailed Rat Snake
Copperhead Rat Snake
Burmese Python
Brongersma’s Python
Sunbeam Snake
Red-tailed Pipe Snake
Tentacled Snake
Puff-faced Water Snake
Rainbow Water Snake

There are 8 repeats of species between the indoor and outdoor zones, so overall Bangkok Snake Farm had 49 different snake species in the facility, plus likely more behind the scenes.

Onwards to the upper floor of the Snake Museum, which was brilliantly done. It actually doesn't take very long to tour the top level, but what is there is impressive. For instance, there's a room that's almost artistic in the labeling and presentation of loads of different snake skeletons.

An important issue in Thailand is dealing with snakebites and the museum has a fantastic educational display featuring a dummy who has been struck by some kind of viper.

Another section has snake skins on display:

There's even a wall of model snake embryos:

If you are ever in Bangkok, then I would highly recommend a visit to Bangkok Snake Farm. Of the 5 small zoos I visited on my first day in Thailand, this one was the best and I spent close to an hour and a half there. (It was all downhill after this place...haha ) I'd visited hundreds of zoos beforehand and still saw probably at least a half-dozen snake species I'd never seen before. I enjoyed the focus on around 50 snake species, without Leopard Geckos in sight, let alone a Mara or a Meerkat. The outdoor terrariums, the King Cobra 'aviary' and the educational displays in the Snake Museum are all excellent, with the only downside being the very basic accommodation with little natural substrate for the inhabitants on the lower level of the Snake Museum.

According to Zootierliste, the Snake Museum is the only collection in the world with an Asian pipe snake

 

[NSU42]

There are also some smaller terrariums, as well as a few that look like this one. It held an albino Burmese Python and the area was an adequate size for the snake. A similar one had a Green Anaconda inside.

This gives me serious Planet Zoo exhibit box vibes. It's looks hexagonal instead of square, but still.

 

[MRJ]

This image shows several pit-like cement exhibits, such as the one for Copperhead Rat Snakes in the foreground, that are very good for their inhabitants. How often does one see snakes with quite a bit of space in open-topped, outdoor exhibits in zoos?

This seems to be a very modern and well-presented facility.

Circular, open-top exhibits like this and often much larger were once very common in Australian zoos. They seem to have all but disappeared now.

 

[ralph]

I visited Thailand (including Bangko)k twice. In 2012, I visited the now closed Dusit Zoo.
In 2023, I did not visit any zoos and focused more on wildlife (I saw among others many birds, soms reptiles, 7 types of primate, gaur, elephant, jackals, leopard and Edens whales) and a bit on the cultural sights.
If I will ever return a third time though, I might add this little zoo to my list.

It baffles me how you still had the energy to visit 5(!) zoos on your day on arrival, after such a long journey. You must have been utterly exhausted at the end of the day.

And not only did you visit 5 institutions, you also had time to take photo's and make species lists...

Are you a robot?

 

[CGSwans]

I visited Thailand (including Bangko)k twice. In 2012, I visited the now closed Dusit Zoo.
In 2023, I did not visit any zoos and focused more on wildlife (I saw among others many birds, soms reptiles, 7 types of primate, gaur, elephant, jackals, leopard and Edens whales) and a bit on the cultural sights.
If I will ever return a third time though, I might add this little zoo to my list.

It baffles me how you still had the energy to visit 5(!) zoos on your day on arrival, after such a long journey. You must have been utterly exhausted at the end of the day.

And not only did you visit 5 institutions, you also had time to take photo's and make species lists...

Are you a robot?

That would explain the fast food addiction. The only nutrition he needs is a bit of grease.

 

[snowleopard]

DAY 1: Friday, August 2nd

After completing my tour of Bangkok Snake Farm, I jumped back into my waiting taxi and the driver took me 30 minutes north to a zoo that probably no one reading this has ever heard of. I added it on late while planning the trip and these next two zoos are arguably the two most inconsequential of my entire journey through Southeast Asia.

Zoo/Aquarium #2: Peuan Deratchan Mini Zoo (Bangkok, Thailand)

The road that this zoo is on is incredibly busy, bustling with families selling street food, cars whizzing by, a couple of donkeys in someone's front yard making a racket, and the taxi parked right across the zoo and I snapped this photo. Just like the Bangkok Snake Farm, this mini zoo was very cheap to enter and just a few U.S. dollars. Oh yeah, there's motorbikes by the tens of thousands in Southeast Asia, ready to cut off your car in traffic and the riders come perilously close to death every few seconds. There are possibly more bikes than leaves on the jungle trees.

This is a ramshackle, family-owned little zoo that can easily be toured in 45 minutes. It’s a naff little facility, stinky everywhere, full of nooks and crannies that would be exciting if the enclosure quality wasn’t so home-made. There’s a wire, Philly Zoo 360 style overhead tunnel section of Domestic Cats that is labeled as Leopard Cat, plus the usual motley assortment of standard pet-shop exotics.

Here's a Bearded Dragon, an Argus Monitor and a bunch of cages full of animals stacked in the back.

The 'Catwalk' that goes above the heads of visitors:

A Blue-tongued Skink inside an open-topped purple tub:

Lots of Green Iguanas in several wood & wire cages:

Even a Monocled Cobra in a small terrarium:

A bunch of fish, reptiles and amphibians have standard, pet-shop type tanks but nothing is for sale in this place and it's a proper zoo.

They even have Meerkats in an odd enclosure as there's some significant rock-work along one side, and many climbing opportunities that make it seem that the exhibit once held a primate species. The zoo used to have Squirrel Monkeys and I suspect this is where they were held.

There's an outdoor section that includes a walk-through with large tortoises, Grey Crowned Cranes and a few other unsigned bird species. Everything is tight on space, with visitors and animals all crammed together. I saw some people petting the cranes as they are very tame birds here.

There's a few very tiny, bizarre little aviaries scattered around the place.

In the background you can see visitors petting a cockatoo and in the foreground there's an open-topped Burmese Python enclosure. Feel free to touch the snake!

Lastly, there's a stinky Siamese Crocodile pool that offers up barely enough space for one croc let alone the two that the zoo had. A similar pool held Cuvier's Dwarf Caimans.

Species list (and there was possibly more in stacked cages): Domestic Cat, Meerkat, Red-bellied Tree Squirrel, Dormouse, Grey Crowned Crane, Blue-and-gold Macaw, Black-headed Parrot, Zebra Finch, Budapest Pigeon, Siamese Crocodile, Cuvier’s Dwarf Caiman, Burmese Python, Monocled Cobra, Oriental Whip Snake, Corn Snake, Argus Monitor, Green Iguana, Bearded Dragon, Blue-tongued Skink, African Spurred Tortoise, Indian Star Tortoise, Argentine Horned Frog and Oriental Fire-bellied Newt.

I hopped back into the taxi, risking my life just by walking across the road, and the driver took me 15 minutes south to my 3rd zoo of the day.

Zoo/Aquarium #3: Bangkok Butterfly Garden & Insectarium (Bangkok, Thailand)

Inside Wachirabenchathat Park is this facility that can be quickly toured in no time at all. I was disappointed to find out it was only a butterfly walk-through, as several older, brief reviews online mentioned other live insects and I even saw a couple of small, empty bird cages just outside the entrance. Nevertheless, the place is free to enter and since I arrived just after a short thunderstorm, I almost had the garden to myself.

Strolling through the park on my way to the Butterfly Garden was a wonderful experience, as it had poured down for most of the 30-minute taxi ride and then the sun came out afterwards and the heat and humidity intensified yet again. I continued to haul my backpack around as I definitely didn't want to leave it in the taxi and risk the guy taking off with it on my first day in Asia.

The park is nicely laid out, with wide, paved walking paths and some water features alongside with lots of birds and lizards in all directions. Going through the park, touring the Butterfly Garden, and walking back to my rented taxi took maybe one hour and I saw EIGHT tree shrews in that time period. They looked identical to the 'Northern Tree Shrews' labeled at many North American zoos and I also saw several yellow and brown squirrels and probably 25 bird species. It seemed as if the park was coming back to life, with everything soaked but the animal life was in abundance. It was great to see some local wildlife and temporarily escape the hustle and bustle of the Bangkok streets. I even bought a small bag of chips and a bottle of water from a street vendor and that ended up being my measly lunch for the day. How do I manage these arduous yet enthralling zoo trips? I've stayed fit, keeping my 6 foot frame at a trim 175 pounds/79 kilograms via playing soccer with my sons, going on our elliptical machine at home and it's important to keep it up to hopefully avoid issues as I age.

The Bangkok Butterfly Garden looks impressive from a distance and I was surprised that such a major structure would have free admission. I just had to sign in at the entrance and the two individuals running the counter spoke zero English and so it was difficult when I was asking them if there was an additional room of insects. My translator app worked okay and I was told that it was only butterflies and to watch out for snakes...which seemed ominous!

Entrance to Bangkok Butterfly Garden (via a hallway of insect posters and signs).

Unfortunately for myself and other tourists, none of the words on the signs are in English.

The roof of Bangkok Butterfly Garden:

Interior of Bangkok Butterfly Garden:

This section is particularly beautiful, with loads of jungle vines hanging down and butterflies were flying around the tendrils.

There are many gorgeously designed displays in Wachirabenchathat Park, including this one that gleams in the sunshine in a bed of sunflowers.

 

[Dassie rat]

Are you going to the Pata Zoo, snowleopard?

 

[snowleopard]

Are you going to the Pata Zoo, snowleopard?

The infamous Pata Zoo was the 4th stop on my first day in Thailand and it will be the next review on this thread. It had been many years since anyone uploaded photos from this zoo into the gallery and at least 7 years since there was a range of 'exhibit shots'. This was possibly the only zoo of my big Asia trip that I knew would be awful before walking in the entrance, and most of the rarities are long gone, but I had numerous requests for recent photos from a variety of people. I've obviously never worked with any kind of anti-zoo organization as I love zoos, but in the past my images have been used to put pressure on closing down a handful of zoos in U.S. states like Arkansas and Wisconsin, so perhaps my photos and review will help close down Pata Zoo. One can only hope that's the case. It's already on its last legs as the shopping mall that the zoo is located in has entire floors closed down and is in a state of disrepair. Stay tuned for my review!

 

[Ned]

I also visited the snake farm last year; I agree that the indoor vivariums were small and fairly plainly furnished, but what an amazing collection of snakes! and with such a focus on Thai species.
The part of the museum that fascinated me the most was the display of hemipeneses. A row of tall jars with dissected snakes showing the anatomical structure of hemipeneses from different species, some looking like spiky spheres, many long spirals and the large claws that are a feature of the reticulated python's sex organs. I've never seen a display quite like it but I wish more zoos had displays like this.