My partner and I decided we would check out what else Chiang-Mai has to offer, stumbled across the zoo.
Where to start... the enterance looks welcoming and starts off great; it goes downhill very fast. As soon as you enter past the main gates, you encounter a “closed for renovation” sign. Okay, fair enough, some times things need to be maintained. As you continue to head deeper into the zoo, you’ll soon discover that many enclosures are “closed for renovation” with no actual work seeming to take place.
Many closed enclosures which is a real shame as it must’ve been great in its prime. It seems to be a former shadow of what once was.
Mono-rail doesn’t exist anymore- just the line that has become one with nature after YEARS of not being maintained- just like the majority of the zoo, unfortunately.
Many enclosures are so difficult to look at; concrete with stagnant water, no bigger than the inside of a tuk-tuk, for an animal half the size. This is common throughout the zoo.
Some of the most depressing scenes are the big wild cats, tigers, leopards, panthers, lions etc are stood aimlessly, staring into oblivion void of any companionship. Many animals just repeatedly walking up and down, up and down. You don’t need to be an animal expert to see there is a problem there.
Aquarium is okay, very hard to make up for the complete and utter lack of care for any other animals. Especially when you see the high levels of water that the aquarium uses, compared to the majority of land animals with lack of fresh water (whenever it rains seems good enough) doesn’t look like it has been physically changed by a zoo keeper.
The most saddening is the penguin enclosure: dim, no outside lighting at all. Lights hanging off the ceiling, miserable off white background that hasn’t been cleaned for who knows how long. A pit full of water and droppings, absolutely no lights for the penguins to be able to swim clearly (I'm not an expert on penguin vision, but this is something else).
All just stood around, staring at walls, what else to do? Very off-putting, I’ve never been in a bird enclosure that is drop dead silent until I visited these penguins.
Brings me on to the bird enclosure- if anything it reminded me of Jurassic Park where they head into an abandoned bird cage, no sounds, no movement and yes I was looking up.
In fact, you see more in the Jurassic Park bird cage than you do here. A couple of swans, a blue pigeon... the list doesn’t go on much more.
I think other people have touched on the transport aspects quite well so I’ll leave that. You can walk but it is hot, facilities are basic, but food is cheap and okay at best.
If you have compassion and care for animals and can see where mistreatment is being placed then I highly suggest giving this zoo a wide-berth.
Not too long ago this zoo USED to participate in elephant riding which says a lot about the values that are rooted in the foundations. That is however, in the past, but it does still go on in Thailand and many other places in the world.
I hate to knock it down but the staff seemed more busy staring at their phones than actually taking care of animals and cleaning enclosures.
Anyway, if you wish to check it out, do so with minimal expectations. Perhaps check out the elephant sanctuaries where you can feed, play and clean the elephants.
Don’t really have anything good to say about it. I hope if you visit, you’ll see exactly what other people are trying to stress on here.
Sorry Chiang-Mai, your zoo is super debilitating.
