Heather's Thairy

Heather's journey to Bangkok, Thailand: a year of adventure!

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Kan We Do It? (part 2)

...continued from the previous post...
The next day was just as busy. We started with a walk down to the Death Railway Museum, which is the museum that Steph and I had meant to go to on our previous visit to Kanchanaburi. It was very comprehensive and nice; very clean and professional looking, not full of grotesque dioramas and weird artifacts. There was one "hospital room" that reminded me of the other museum, and I suspect that perhaps the Death Railway Museum commissioned the same clown who outfitted the Jeath War Museum to create that hospital room.
After the museum, we met up with the rest of the group and went to Safari World. It's a sort of zoo, with a "safari" through some of the larger enclosures and animal shows as well as more traditional zoo habitats. The safari part was great, though we wished we could have directed the driver around the enclosures.







During the safari, you open the windows and feed the animals corn or bananas. They are pretty tame and come right up to the bus.









After the safari, we looked around at the other animals. We weren't particularly impressed with how sparse and small the enclosures were; how can it be right that a fox has the identical enclosure to a monkey? Surely there is some difference in what they require...





I also met this fellow, a statue of a gorilla holding...a bunch of bananas. Possibly the most hilarious statue EVER. Why, you ask? Uh...because of his funny face. Yeah, that's it. Let's just say that Darcy and I both cried we thought it was so funny.



There are three different animal shows at Safari World: The Dog Show, The Crocodile Show, and the Elephant Show. We saw all three, or at least parts of all three. The dog show was an abomination: borderline animal abuse coupled with terrible music and extremely loud commentary. We left early. The crocodile show was a bit better, being more composed, quieter and a bit more caring for the animals involved. It was almost boring, though: I think it would have been better had we been able to understand the commentary.
The last show was by far the best: the elephant show. It ended up being the best mostly because we were the first to arrive, and the keepers let a few of us ride the elephants!!!









The show itself was not nearly as comprehensive as the one in Chiang Mai, but it was still enjoyable and didn't exploit the animals the way they seemed to in the dog show.



After Safari World we went to the Tiger Temple, which was basically the same as when I went before. This time, my photographer was a bit of a moron and only toook 6 pictures (as compared to some other people who had over 15). He also took a classic one where my head is cut off. Guess he didn't want some person messing up his tiger picture. The best part of the tiger temple is walking up afterwards and having a look at the other animals; the little bear was still there and still very cute, although I think he has grown a bit and he didn't have his blanket. He was playing with a plastic water bottle and we also got to see him drink two bottles of milk.



I think that Mom and Dad had a good time, which was the most important thing. I got to see and do some new and exciting things and I got to see the bear again. We stayed in a new place that was actually as nice as the ads and the Lonely Planet book claimed, and we ate good food all weekend and no one got sick. All in all: success!

Until next time,
Heather

2 Comments:

  • At 7:20 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Hi Heather,
    This is so coool. You can now take riding an elephant off your to-do list. Did mom or dad get to ride an elephant? I'm so envious. You've got to blow up the picture of you and the tiger. You look like soul mates! would love a copy of this one to show my class!
    Love, Auntie Bonnie

     
  • At 8:21 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    you saw giraffes and tigers!!
    dear heather, i'm jealous. tigers are an old favourite of mine, and giraffes are a new favourite of mine . . .
    love friend andrew

     

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