This is from my blog from last year's trip through Asia...
My first stop in Chiang Mai, as for that of any sensible person when coming into a new town, was the zoo. I took a songthaew for just 30 Baht, for a distance that further south probably would have garnered an argument for 300 Baht. The zoo is very good but with many old cages. There's lots of construction work going on all over the place, so it looks like they're renovating everything. The zoo is also very big, and very steep, which makes walking round very tiresome. There is a shuttle system but you have to pay for it, so I just used my legs. Like everywhere in Asia, when the way is steep they accomodate by just putting in an equally steep concrete path that then gets covered in a film of moss and algae and when wet becomes a deathtrap. They do have some steps here and there but whoever made them displayed the common Asian predilection for having the flat bit of each step sloping downwards and, well, you can imagine the scenario when wet. To sum up, you need to be careful walking the paths in Chiang Mai Zoo! The zoo is most famous for having giant pandas but you have to pay extra to see them (100 Baht, which is the same price as entry to the whole rest of the zoo) so I gave them a miss. I'll wait till I go to China to see pandas. They've also got koalas now but what with all the walking it wasn't till after I left that I realised I'd missed them as well. That's the problem with big zoos -- you almost invariably miss things, even if you try your best to follow everything on the map (and the map for Chiang Mai Zoo is next to useless for directions!). It wasn't pandas or koalas that had brought me to the zoo, however, it was the aquarium, because the aquarium has Mekong giant catfish, the pla buk, on display. It was up behind the penguin house apparently. I found the penguin house. Couldn't find the aquarium. I walked further and found the Cape fur seal house, so knew I'd gone too far. I walked back. Penguin house, no aquarium. I looked till my eyes bled, but still no aquarium. Either I was a complete ***** or something fishy was going on. I gave up and wandered all the way back to the start. It turned out the aquarium was closed. No pla buk for me. With no giant catfish, the best animal at the zoo was a rufous treepie which is a species of magpie. Very very attractive. The reptile section was very good, even if some of the smaller tanks were positioned so that all you could see was your own reflection looking back at you. The nocturnal house also was very good. I'm not entirely sure that the zoo designers were fully aware of what being nocturnal entails (ie, being in the dark), but it was still good seeing half-dozy civets and so on. The best animals in the nocturnal house were the three-striped palm civet (although that one was fully asleep) and the ferret badger which looks like a ferret pretending to be a badger. So cute.
My first stop in Chiang Mai, as for that of any sensible person when coming into a new town, was the zoo. I took a songthaew for just 30 Baht, for a distance that further south probably would have garnered an argument for 300 Baht. The zoo is very good but with many old cages. There's lots of construction work going on all over the place, so it looks like they're renovating everything. The zoo is also very big, and very steep, which makes walking round very tiresome. There is a shuttle system but you have to pay for it, so I just used my legs. Like everywhere in Asia, when the way is steep they accomodate by just putting in an equally steep concrete path that then gets covered in a film of moss and algae and when wet becomes a deathtrap. They do have some steps here and there but whoever made them displayed the common Asian predilection for having the flat bit of each step sloping downwards and, well, you can imagine the scenario when wet. To sum up, you need to be careful walking the paths in Chiang Mai Zoo! The zoo is most famous for having giant pandas but you have to pay extra to see them (100 Baht, which is the same price as entry to the whole rest of the zoo) so I gave them a miss. I'll wait till I go to China to see pandas. They've also got koalas now but what with all the walking it wasn't till after I left that I realised I'd missed them as well. That's the problem with big zoos -- you almost invariably miss things, even if you try your best to follow everything on the map (and the map for Chiang Mai Zoo is next to useless for directions!). It wasn't pandas or koalas that had brought me to the zoo, however, it was the aquarium, because the aquarium has Mekong giant catfish, the pla buk, on display. It was up behind the penguin house apparently. I found the penguin house. Couldn't find the aquarium. I walked further and found the Cape fur seal house, so knew I'd gone too far. I walked back. Penguin house, no aquarium. I looked till my eyes bled, but still no aquarium. Either I was a complete ***** or something fishy was going on. I gave up and wandered all the way back to the start. It turned out the aquarium was closed. No pla buk for me. With no giant catfish, the best animal at the zoo was a rufous treepie which is a species of magpie. Very very attractive. The reptile section was very good, even if some of the smaller tanks were positioned so that all you could see was your own reflection looking back at you. The nocturnal house also was very good. I'm not entirely sure that the zoo designers were fully aware of what being nocturnal entails (ie, being in the dark), but it was still good seeing half-dozy civets and so on. The best animals in the nocturnal house were the three-striped palm civet (although that one was fully asleep) and the ferret badger which looks like a ferret pretending to be a badger. So cute.
