Chiang Mai zoo

Thailand, Day 2
Today we went to the Chiang Mai zoo.  I wasn't sure what to expect because although the zoo had a high overall rating and was named a top thing to do in Chiang Mai, it had a lot of 1 star ratings as well.  We loved it!  We took a tuk tuk to get there.  It was our first experience riding in one.  The traffic here is crazy.  Most people ride motorcycles and they zoom around all the cars.  The driving lanes and traffic lights seem to be more of a suggestion than a rule.  The motorcycles and tuk tuks all drive on the shoulder when traffic is stopped to get to the front of the line.  Riding on the highway in an open air tuk tuk with no seat belts was definitely much different than riding in their 5 point harness car seats back home. 

One of the things people complained about is the fact the zoo is very spread out and has a lot of hills.  This wasn't a big deal for us because they have a monorail and a tram that you can pay to ride around the park.  You can get on and off as much as you want to see the different exhibits.  Another thing I thought was interesting is you could drive inside the zoo.  There were parking areas near all the major exhibits. 

The monorail moved very slowly on an elevated rail to give you a great view of the exhibits.

On the monorail

Tommy was excited to sit in the very front of the tram

Going to the zoo really appealed to me because they have panda bears, koala bears, and kangaroos, none of which we have back home in St. Louis.  The panda bears were especially cute.

checking out the panda bears

What a life, sitting back munching on a big pile of bamboo

koala bears

As it turned out, our favorite thing about the zoo is you are able to feed a lot of the animals.  We fed the hippos, sheep, elephants, and jaguar.  You were able to get really close to the animals instead of only being able to view them from far away.

dropping potatoes in the hippos' mouths

Tom had to pick up Tommy so the sheep wouldn't jump on him

Charlotte really wanted to pet the baby sheep, but it kept running away

The kids really wanted to feed the elephants even though we had just fed them a lot the day before

It was cute to see the baby elephant playing with her mom

Feeding the jaguar a piece of meat

We were hungry for lunch and the first two places marked on the map with a fork and spoon were really just small stores that sold bags of chips/cookies and ice cream cones.  The only thing that slightly resembled a meal was a cup of noodles.  We were hungry and not sure if there were going to be better options later, so we decided to have that for lunch.

Lunch.  Tom picked out a green drink with oranges on the label.  It was called "Chlorophyll".  It tasted more like unsweetened tea, no orange flavor at all.

We rode the tram around and saw the other exhibits, got an ice cream cone and were ready to go home. 

Pretty scenery in the bird park

This exhibit had many different animals in one pen: zebras, ostriches, giraffes

The zoo had a playground as well

You could also pay to ride an elephant, we skipped this

We got a different kind of taxi home.  There are also covered pick up trucks with 2 benches in the back to sit on.  We told the driver where we needed to go and negotiated a price.  These can hold a lot more people (probably around 8) so the driver tries to get several riders in the same general vicinity and drops them off as he goes.  We had a couple and a single guy riding with us as well.