O-Pints And Other Excitement At Chiang Mai Zoo

Confronted with two long curved and dangerously pointed tusks — so long they crossed over in front — and a wise elephant eye, I had no choice but to hand over the booty, 20 baht worth of bananas, cucumbers and sugar cane pieces.

With Miss M and the plastic dish of elephant food in one arm, I used my free hand to hold up each offering so the soft and slimy questing trunk could take it.

“O-pint,” Miss M yelled, pointing at the beautiful enormous elephant. “O-pint!” I kept passing things, worried that if I was too slow the beautiful o-pint could fall into a rage and trample us all. There was a waist-high section of fence between me and this towering creature, who was sneakily storing bananas and cucumbers in a bend in her trunk. (I say her because the most adorable baby elephant was being washed nearby by a sullen zoo employee with a cigarette hanging out the side of his mouth. And there was no other possible o-pint parent around.)

The o-pint looked calm enough, an old hand at this don’t-scare-the-tourists-with-food gig.

It was then I faced one of life’s harsh realities. With a baby in one arm and elephant food in the other, there is no free hand to take photos. What a bitter bitter pill to swallow on this fabulous family outing. I could not capture the enormity and splendour of those soaring tusks, swooping down from high above me, bobbing dangerously close as the gentle tip of the elephant’s trunk bumped around in the food bowl in my hand.

Darling Man snapped a few photos, but I look too fat for those pics to be on display. (I love being management and being able to decide these things.)

Aware that o-pints have to eat virtually all day to support their massive frames, I bought a second plastic basket of elephant food. “Cucumbers,” I sniffed to myself. “Negative calories, not what a growing o-pint needs.” But Chiang Mai cucumbers are quite tasty. Two rounds of elephant snacks for 40 baht — that’s US$1.30 or A$1.28. I should have stood there all day feeding the o-pint, but it was our first stop, and the allure of the vast zoo was too much. I told the elephant I’d be back – and I will be. The Chiang Mai Zoo is amazing.

Miss M had great fun shouting out the names of animals she recognised from her “My First Words” board book.

“Lion!” she shouted. “Duck!” Each animal was the ultimate in excitement.

“‘Raffe!”

If there’s one thing I could watch all day, it’s the patterns on African animal skin stretching and moving as muscles and bones move underneath. It’s hypnotic and so very alive.

But this particular ‘raffe was a bit too particular. It wouldn’t eat the bananas we bought for it. It would eat other tourists’ bananas but not ours. So we turned up our noses in retaliation — refraining from sticking our tongues up our noses like the snooty ‘raffe — and we flounced off.

We found tigers and pumas — and you could feed those too. For — you guessed it — 20 baht, you could buy a hunk of meat on a long skewer and poke the meat through the fence. I don’t know whether this is a great thing, or a terrible thing, but it was a very popular thing. One of the big cats was quite fat, so I presume they get enough to eat.

“Oh, BIRDS!” Miss M yelled. Birds? Sweetheart, there’s tigers and monkeys and bears.

“BIRDS!” she insisted. And we were stranded in front of some birdcages. Nice enough birds, I guess, but just birds. Seemed like the type you’d find in a pet store.

To keep her happy we took her into the bird enclosure. She loved the swans, but didn’t really get the hang of spotting birds at the feeding stations or in the treetops.

Miss M had just as much fun running along pathways as she did looking at exotic (and non-exotic) animals. As did her zoo-panion, the feisty Miss N, just six months older than Miss M.

As the little ones started to flag, the big ones decided to skip some animals. Penguins, reptiles, primates — they didn’t make the cut. Noodles, ice cream and the adventure park did. Be warned — the adventure park really isn’t worth it.

The little ones flagged some more. It was nap time. The big ones got on the tram and headed towards the entrance.

As we trundled past monkeys and sun bears and deer and camels and a white emu (never even heard of a white emu before!), the bus driver kept up a loud commentary in Thai. The bus driver must have been Thailand’s answer to Eddie Murphy because the Thai tourists on the bus could not stop laughing. They were slapping their legs and nearly slipping off their seats. I wish, how I wish, I could have understood.

Miss N nodded off. Miss M almost nodded off, but fought the good fight and didn’t. The two families walked down to the flamingos and said goodbye. A great family outing in Chiang Mai, a great day for young and old…. err, make that big and little.

Miss M and I went to a gift shop to wait for Darling Man to bring the motorbike round. And we waited. And waited.

Then Darling Man walked into the gift shop. “I’ve lost the keys,” he said. “They must have fallen out of my pocket somewhere.” And this is when the not-so-great part of the outing started.

The not-so-great part took a looong time. A perky information girl with a walky-talky tried to organise things. Darling Man went back into the zoo to retrace his steps. The bus driver-comic was conscripted to help. And I waited, and waited, and waited….

The information desk shut, the information girls — even the perky one — went home. The zoo drained of visitors … and Miss M and I were still in the carpark, Miss M flinging herself at a giant stuffed panda and clambering over other people’s motorbikes.

Darling Man came back, mumbled something and disappeared again. Miss M, who should have napped HOURS ago got ratty. I got ratty. Darling Man came back again, quite stressed — and he never gets stressed.

Phone calls to the lady we rented the bike from. More waiting. More rattiness. Then phone calls coming in, and people waiting here and there and there and here and not connecting. The sky started to get dark.

The motorbike owner and some family members arrived at the zoo in a song taew they’d hired. (Song taews are red pickup trucks that are a hybrid bus and taxi.) Darling Man and some other muscular types had already loaded the key-less motorbike into the back of the song taew when a carpark attendant says something like “oh, are you looking for a set of motorbike keys, by any chance?” And holds up Darling Man’s keys with a helpful expression.

Motorbike gets unloaded, apologies all round, Darling Man summons me to the street in front of the zoo.

There is some looming official event. The street is being cleared by policemen in tight uniforms. A grim-faced cop hurries us up. I am rushing, balancing the baby and a bottle and a backpack. I put the bottle down on a ledge to rearrange everything — and I discover the top three buttons of my shirt are undone, and EVERYTHING is hanging out there for all of Chiang Mai to see. I squawp and turn my back on the policeman and try to make myself respectable again while keeping hold of Miss M’s hand.

Oh, what a crap-tap-ulous end to a wonderful day.

“I should have known to talk to the carpark attendant,” Darling Man says as we drive home, Miss M slumped between us, finally asleep. “That’s who you hand keys to in Vietnam.” Shame on me for doing the Western thing and heading for the information desk.

Chiang Mai Zoo
100 Huay Keaw Road, T. Suthem, A,Muang, Chiang Mai 50200
Email: cmzooinfocenter@yahoo.com
Tel: +66 (0) 53-221179
www.chiangmaizoo.com
Entry: 100 baht for adults, 50 baht for children under 135 cm. (Extra for panda enclosure, aquarium and snow dome)
Tramcar and monorail ticket (highly recommended, the zoo is huge, and it’s on the side of a mountain): 150 baht for adults, 100 baht for children under 135 cm

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By: Barbara

A career girl who dropped out, traveled, found love, and never got around to going home again. Now wrangling a cross-cultural relationship and two third culture kids.