A visit to Chiang Mai Zoo
The Chiang Mai Zoo is a combination of the good and the bad in zoos.
I am not going to get into the debate of whether zoos are inherently evil or if they should be lauded for the good work they do. That is far too much of a powder keg and I truly don’t have enough knowledge to give a reasoned opinion. But there is great potential for a zoo to be a depressing place to visit and to come away from with an overwhelming sadness for the animals trapped there.
That being said, I do like zoos, as long as they are well done.
The online reviews for Chiang Mai Zoo are a bit of a mixture and online reviews should always be taken with a grain of salt. It was with this and an open mind that I set off for my day at the zoo.
The zoo is open from 8am to 5pm daily and is located on Huaykaew Road. I honestly can’t tell you how much to expect to pay for public transport, me being me I walked there. It took a while but was a pleasant walk. All up I walked 31km (a little over 19 miles for the metrically challenged) there and back and around the zoo.
Arriving at the zoo there were a few carts outside the entrance selling food and panda shaped souvenirs. This is when I first realised that it is very much a car friendly zoo. The ticket window had to be reached by walking between the cars lined up to buy tickets. In fact you can drive into the zoo and move from exhibit to exhibit in air-conditioned private comfort and use the parking spaces set up outside each stop. If you choose to walk then you need to be aware that you are sharing the space with vehicles.
The reason you share the place with vehicles? It’s large, about 81 hectares (200 acres) and large parts are up and down hills. If you don’t fancy walking the entire place then you can hire a golf cart that will comfortably seat 4 people for 350 baht an hour or for just 30 baht there is a shuttle bus that will let you get on and off at 7 stations set up around the park. There is also a monorail track that runs around the zoo but I never saw a monorail car and I suspect it is no longer in operation.
I chose to walk.
I also chose the cheapest entry ticket. It was 150 baht if you just wanted to visit the zoo but 350 baht if you combined the aquarium as well. I didn’t really want to see the aquarium so I went for the zoo only ticket.
I was given a map with my ticket and decided to follow the suggested route. This took me first past the African Animal Zone which was a wide open space with giraffes, ostriches, zebras and some waterbuck. There was a giraffe eating out of people’s hands so every tree within walking distance was being denuded of leaves by people eager to get there photo taken feeding a giraffe. While that was happening I was watching the waterbuck and having flashbacks to animal identification training while I was in South Africa. Then I spotted what I first took to be a squirrel but actually turned out to be a meerkat. The little guy was checking out some zebra and didn’t seem too concerned by the size difference. As I moved on I found that the next enclosure was supposedly a colony of meerkats although I only saw two. The rest may have been out exploring the rest of the zoo.
A right hand turn and it was the big cats. This is where it got a bit sad. Admittedly I know from experience that lions spend the majority of the day asleep but there is something negative about seeing a big cat in a small space. The tiger even had that pacing behaviour that is never a good sign. The smaller of the cats, the leopards and jaguar, had bigger areas but there was a stand there where you could buy a chunk of meat on a stick which you poked through the mesh of the cage to feed the cat. I don’t know if this is a good thing or not.
But next up it was the pandas. It was an extra 100 baht to see the pandas but this was an easy decision. After a little bit of confusion with a long queue of kids waiting to get into the Snow Dome (snow indoors in Thailand!) I found the entrance to the panda exhibit. Definitely worth the extra cost.
There were two pandas kept in separate enclosures. One was asleep on a rock but the other was walking around and then sat down to destroy and eat some bamboo. All this happened surprisingly close to the people so photos were being taken frantically by everyone. After eating, the panda fell asleep. I have a feeling I may have lucked out seeing this much activity.
On the way out I bought a fridge magnet and a Panda Poo Paper notebook.
From the pandas it was through an impressive rose garden and then a small display of koalas doing what koalas do. Sleeping in a tree.
Next up was the Zoo Kids Zone. I didn’t venture into the impressive looking building, which seemed to be set up as an educational place for school visits, but the couple of monkeys in a cage outside was not overly impressive.
From there it was a hike up hill to the orang-utan enclosure. Unfortunately no orang-utans in residence. There was an impressive view over Chiang Mai from the balcony of a small restaurant as I rehydrated though.
Down a small side road was a large building that is not really clearly signed. It’s big, white, impressive and seems to have been built solely to house a handful of penguins. It is cool though (literally as it’s pleasantly air-conditioned after the walk up the hill) and who doesn’t like watching penguins, especially when you can go downstairs and watch them from below the water as they swim.
Across the top of the hill are the deer exhibits and the walkway out over the enclosure is impressive. There was also an aviary with a variety of hornbills, parrots and a lot of chickens.
The Indian Rhino looked a bit sad just standing in his space but Gibbon Island seemed to be well done and the gibbons seemed happy to put on a display if they thought anyone was watching.
At the very top of the hill is the elephant ride. This is a very contentious issue for any tourist and I really can’t comment on the treatment of the elephants in the zoo that are used for riding. This is one you will need to make your own decision about.
Heading down the hill there was another building housing the Seal Show. Unfortunately I would have had to wait for a couple of hours to see it so I passed on by.
Past the Barbary sheep, that clearly didn’t suffer from any fear of heights, was a couple of cages, one seemingly empty and one with a pair of Asiatic Black Bears. The bear enclosure was uninspiring.
I walked past the Animal Show stadium, being there at the wrong time again. A bit further on and there were two Asian elephants playing leap frog.
Circling around the elephants it was downhill past some monkeys, in uninspiring enclosures again, to the Australian zone. The Australian Zone had emus and kangaroos, the kangaroos asleep in the sun as kangaroos are wont to do. But then came the highlight of the entire zoo with a glimpse of the very rare Australian native animal…the sheep. It warmed my kiwi heart to see them.
That bought me back to the entrance.
I was there for about 4 hours and that didn’t include seeing any of the shows or visiting the aquarium. You could make a full day out of it easily if you timed things correctly and it is certainly value for money.
In terms of whether the zoo is a good thing or a bad thing and the state of the exhibits for some animals, it’s a bit harder to judge. Like I said at the beginning, Chiang Mai Zoo is a mixture of good and bad but the thing to keep in mind is that it is popular and not going away anytime soon. If foreign tourists boycotted it completely then its revenue would drop and the animals would suffer all around. The best thing to do is to visit and then send them your feedback. Let them know how they can improve the zoo and bring in more visitors and money for the benefit of animals and visitors alike. They do seem to be improving exhibits and enclosures but, as with parks of all kinds everywhere, it’s easier to attract more visitors with something new than with improving the old.