It was pretty big, even has a bus and monorail system, and the many diverse animals seemed to have enough space and food to live happily. We first went to the panda area and I was happy to see that Chuang Chuang and Lin Hua were in an air conditioned space, complete with chairs, bamboo, trees and other things to play with and eat. However, after working so closely with the pandas in China, zoos are less fun as I don't like having to stay behind the fence!
But it was awesome to see them, especially since their 10 year loan from China ends next year so they may not be sticking around Thailand. But maybe they'll extend the loan, especially since they were successful in breeding a baby named Lin Ping in 2009, who we didn't see, which is pretty rare for pandas in captivity (must be all the sexual energy Thailand is known for!).
The rest of the zoo included lions, tigers, hippos, rhinos, deer, koalas and of course, elephants.
But here, unlike any other zoo, a few elephants were not behind a fence and we could just walk up and touch and feed them. A zoo in the states would never allow that! The other odd thing was that the monkeys were also barely behind fences and we saw a few running around the zoo wild! Imagine that at your local zoo! Doesn't help that this guy was feeding one.
This peacock was also amazingly on display for us.
The penguins made me think of Jeff and Kate!
And since we didn't see any Gibbons while zip lining in Laos, we were happy to watch these swinging creatures for a while.
Not all the monks are in the zoo, every day you meet quite a few (ok I realize it's meant to be 'monkeys' but I couldn't resist!)
Later we met up with Brett from our Vietnam trip as he is back to his home in Chiang Mai. Splurging on Belgium beers in the cool university area was a wonderful last night in Thailand (for now).
Off to Cambodia!
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