Look, Its supposed to be a zoo! and the Chang Mai night market
Today I took the day off, and went out alone, for a few different reasons. But thats another story =)
After doing some routing morning eating, and checking my email, blog, etc.. I was reading through my Lonely Planet guide book, and decided that the Chang Mai Zoo would be a good hit, as I love animals, and zoo's are always a good time. Almost.
To my severe disappointment, this zoo was in a multitude of states, from "operational" to "under construction" to "just plain empty". The first thing I saw when I got to the zoo were two roads, both leading up, steeply. I took the road on the right, and went through the Aviary. This was rather disappointing, because they basically had a few eagles, and some phesents (spelling). After this brief encounter, sidewalk split from the road and went into a small cave with cages of Pigeons. Ohh boy, now I know why the old City Wall outside the Internet Cafe' here is bird free. I'm glad I paid.... less than a dollar. =)
The sidewalk ended just outside the cave at a stairway leading down to the road. I have to say that most of the roads did not have sidewalks, or at least, the sidewalks did not follow the road. I followed the road, up, up, up. I was sweating bullets by the time I got to the ugly bears. Yeah, they were ugly. I love bears, but these were some hillbilly looking bears. If I had the map on me I'd tell you what kind of bears they were exactly. They had two large teeth they stuck out of thair mouths, and they stood on their hind legs as Thai visitors degradingly threw various candies and other assorted snacks at them, generally attempting to get a "hole in one" by landing a piece of food directly into the bears' mouth. Slightly degrading if you ask me. So after this display I moved on, and found about 6 empty displays, I guess you call them that, they are daytime living quarters of the animals, but like I said, they were empty. All the signs were in Thai, exept for the animal names, just below the Thai in English.
I was totally lost at this point, if you can look up a map of the Chang Mai Zoo online, you will see that it is a criss cross loopdy doo zig zag of seemingly all uphill roads. I always thought that story about walking up hill both ways in the snow to and from school to get home were fake, but now I see the storyteller must have lived in the Chang Mai zoo! =)
Its not really that bad, I'm just being pessimistic. Anyway, I continued on and found some more birds, and then, some excitement! Or so I thought. I found an Atrium? Filled with plants and birds!! And kids, lot and lots and lots of brightly colored school outfits glowing on small elementary kids. (perhaps early middleschool, asians really look young for their age). Anyway, they were EVERYWHERE. and my god, if you think the ever winding uphill roads were bad, this place had steps that looked like the 300 step hike up a remote temple. I'm not kidding either, this was totally ridiculous. If you had fallen from the top, you would be in some very serious trouble. I quickly left, fearing that I would pass out before I ever made it to the top of one of those stairs.
Later on, after getting lost once or twice, I found myself near the Panda display, but it seemed that they were charging extra for this exhibit, but perhaps it was something special. It was the middle of the day, and it gets HOT here, and with all the ashfault, I didnt stick around, I wanted out. This is easier said than done, as I ended up at the far end of the zoo, and kicked myself for ever going. On my journey back to the proper exit, I came across what looked like very hungry tiger. He was pacing back and forth an area about 6 feet long, he had more space, but he just kept going back and forth like he was just waiting for the fence to disappear so that he could eat the little kiddies up. (Ohh did I mention, at this point I assumed it was national take your schoolkids to the zoo day, I think every age group with neon clothing was there).
On the way out, I passed the Panda display again, and noticed there were come one-hump camels on the other side. They didnt look very excited to see me. I finally found the exit and left. In all, i payed alot more than I expected for the tuk tuk ride over, however the entrance fee was fair, considering this place was a mess. But I guess I'm glad I gave it a shot, It could have been really cool!
Uug. Im getting tired, so I'm going to cut it short. The Chang Mai night market is great, and i've been contiplating buying a nice travelers backpack for about..... 35 bucks! 1500 baht. Perhaps its 40 bucks, but anyway, its cheap. I got some other goodies, some t-shirts, etc.. so now my bag is full. I still need to get big E some fabrics, I've decided to keep the ones I have now! Hah.
I'll try to write whenever something exciting happens. Other than that its just going.
Matthew.
After doing some routing morning eating, and checking my email, blog, etc.. I was reading through my Lonely Planet guide book, and decided that the Chang Mai Zoo would be a good hit, as I love animals, and zoo's are always a good time. Almost.
To my severe disappointment, this zoo was in a multitude of states, from "operational" to "under construction" to "just plain empty". The first thing I saw when I got to the zoo were two roads, both leading up, steeply. I took the road on the right, and went through the Aviary. This was rather disappointing, because they basically had a few eagles, and some phesents (spelling). After this brief encounter, sidewalk split from the road and went into a small cave with cages of Pigeons. Ohh boy, now I know why the old City Wall outside the Internet Cafe' here is bird free. I'm glad I paid.... less than a dollar. =)
The sidewalk ended just outside the cave at a stairway leading down to the road. I have to say that most of the roads did not have sidewalks, or at least, the sidewalks did not follow the road. I followed the road, up, up, up. I was sweating bullets by the time I got to the ugly bears. Yeah, they were ugly. I love bears, but these were some hillbilly looking bears. If I had the map on me I'd tell you what kind of bears they were exactly. They had two large teeth they stuck out of thair mouths, and they stood on their hind legs as Thai visitors degradingly threw various candies and other assorted snacks at them, generally attempting to get a "hole in one" by landing a piece of food directly into the bears' mouth. Slightly degrading if you ask me. So after this display I moved on, and found about 6 empty displays, I guess you call them that, they are daytime living quarters of the animals, but like I said, they were empty. All the signs were in Thai, exept for the animal names, just below the Thai in English.
I was totally lost at this point, if you can look up a map of the Chang Mai Zoo online, you will see that it is a criss cross loopdy doo zig zag of seemingly all uphill roads. I always thought that story about walking up hill both ways in the snow to and from school to get home were fake, but now I see the storyteller must have lived in the Chang Mai zoo! =)
Its not really that bad, I'm just being pessimistic. Anyway, I continued on and found some more birds, and then, some excitement! Or so I thought. I found an Atrium? Filled with plants and birds!! And kids, lot and lots and lots of brightly colored school outfits glowing on small elementary kids. (perhaps early middleschool, asians really look young for their age). Anyway, they were EVERYWHERE. and my god, if you think the ever winding uphill roads were bad, this place had steps that looked like the 300 step hike up a remote temple. I'm not kidding either, this was totally ridiculous. If you had fallen from the top, you would be in some very serious trouble. I quickly left, fearing that I would pass out before I ever made it to the top of one of those stairs.
Later on, after getting lost once or twice, I found myself near the Panda display, but it seemed that they were charging extra for this exhibit, but perhaps it was something special. It was the middle of the day, and it gets HOT here, and with all the ashfault, I didnt stick around, I wanted out. This is easier said than done, as I ended up at the far end of the zoo, and kicked myself for ever going. On my journey back to the proper exit, I came across what looked like very hungry tiger. He was pacing back and forth an area about 6 feet long, he had more space, but he just kept going back and forth like he was just waiting for the fence to disappear so that he could eat the little kiddies up. (Ohh did I mention, at this point I assumed it was national take your schoolkids to the zoo day, I think every age group with neon clothing was there).
On the way out, I passed the Panda display again, and noticed there were come one-hump camels on the other side. They didnt look very excited to see me. I finally found the exit and left. In all, i payed alot more than I expected for the tuk tuk ride over, however the entrance fee was fair, considering this place was a mess. But I guess I'm glad I gave it a shot, It could have been really cool!
Uug. Im getting tired, so I'm going to cut it short. The Chang Mai night market is great, and i've been contiplating buying a nice travelers backpack for about..... 35 bucks! 1500 baht. Perhaps its 40 bucks, but anyway, its cheap. I got some other goodies, some t-shirts, etc.. so now my bag is full. I still need to get big E some fabrics, I've decided to keep the ones I have now! Hah.
I'll try to write whenever something exciting happens. Other than that its just going.
Matthew.
posted by Matthew DeWitt at 5:31 AM
1 Comments:
Ooh the elephants were fun, but it was a short trip. I'll write a post about it...
WHO SAID ANYTHING BAD ABOUT ME?! WHAT DID THEY SAY? They are just jealous anyway; tell them to live their own lives.
POOPDUCK.
Matthew
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