Going to the Zoo to See All the Animals and a Picnic at Doi Suthep

It was another Sunday, and the staff and I were ready to take the kids out on a day trip to see another part of Chiang mai province. The day before, we spent Saturday at the school where I finished some more painting and started my new project of building eight wooden boxes for the classroom. I was happy to go on today’s trip to the Chiang mai Zoo with a picnic lunch afterwards. After loading up the cars and vans with people, two vehicles went ahead to the zoo while the third went to the market to order food for the lunch later in the afternoon. After we arrived at the zoo we had to wait for twenty minutes before the third vehicle arrived. Not seeing any food in the car, I asked if there had been a change in plans but I found out our food was going to be delivered from the Mae Tang market at 10:30 AM. This type of planning is very strange, instead of buying the food in Chiang mai, it would be delivered from a town an hour away. I only mention this because, even though it seems like a minor problem; this type of planning takes place often in Thailand and doesn’t always seem to make the best sense. We gathered on a zoo tram that would take us to one area of the zoo, drop us off and then we would wait for another tram to pick us up and drive us to another part of the zoo. I say “parts of the zoo” because the zoo is enormous in size with at least sixty different animal exhibits to visit. Our first stop was to see the one-humped camels, bird atrium, orangutans, tigers and a panda (you had to pay an extra 100 baht ($2.50) per person to see the panda, so we skipped that). The orangutans were my favorite in this area of the zoo because it was fun to watch one that seemed to still be waking up from the morning and the other one that could not have been a more of a pain to someone that was still half asleep. The children and I thought it was fun to see the annoying orangutan have a lesson taught to him when he was splashed with water and had a bag thrown over his head to stop him from being a pain. We waited twenty minutes for another tram because it took an empty one to fit everyone in our group; next we went to the Children’s Zoo area. I was a little disappointed in this area because only three out of the twenty exhibits were open. Since the children do not need a lot to be entertained, there was no disappointment on their part, but I think feeding the spotted deer was the highlight for them. The deer were my favorite animal in the entire zoo because I have never been so close to a deer that I was able to touch their noses and antlers. I was also able to feed the deer; I thought that some could have used a little less feeding because a few seemed a little overweight, but it was so hard to resist feeding them after they stuck their mouths through the holes in the gate that I had to give them a treat. After feeding the deer, we waited about an hour for an empty tram but finally, after waiting so long, we just had to send the drivers in the group down to the parking lot ahead of us to get our own van and a car to pick us up. Since it took us so long to get a ride and it was already 11:00 AM, we had to call it a day at the zoo (I was hoping to see the hippos because ever since I was little, I have always enjoyed the hippo exhibits). Fortunately, the food was delivered later than 11:00 AM, so we did not have to have them wait. Rather than eating at the zoo, we decided to take our picnic up the mountain to Doi Suthep, which is a wat on the mountain that overlooks Chiang mai. I was happy to do this because this was another of the places I wanted to visit while in Thailand. When we arrived at Doi Suthep, we found a nice grassy area in the shade and had sticky rice and pork on a stick from the market. They ordered so much food that they gave me a bag of pork on a stick to myself, so it was my job to eat as many as I could and pawn the rest off on the children. After convincing the children that if they ate them they would become strong like me, I was able to empty the bag of pork on a stick in no time. After eating the picnic lunch, everyone lined up to see the wat. The key word is “up”, having eaten all the pork on a stick and sticky rice; everyone had to climb at least 150 steps to get to the top of the wat. I ended up carrying one girl, Prauew the second half of the way because there were too many steps for her to climb all by herself, plus I was trying to prevent the crying that could have come at any moment. The wat was very interesting; we all had to take our shoes off before entering, and inside were golden statues of Buddha everywhere with a center structure that was covered in gold leaf. The children made their way around the entire wat until they were inside one little room where a monk sitting on a chair was able to bless the children and they each received a string bracelet that represents good luck. I did not go inside because I was taking photos of the children along with other tourists who thought it was really cute to see all the little Thai children kneeling and bowing in front of the monk. I had to tell one couple about who we were when she asked if I was related to the children (I thought this was a pretty interesting comment considering the fact that the children and I look somewhat different). A few more group photos were taken, and then I managed to get separated so I headed down a little bit before they did because I thought they had left. It ended up that I had some time to shop at the bottom and found the stand serving iced coffee before I met up with the group again. The day was fun and had an exciting pulse, and I was able to see and do a lot that I wanted to see while I was here in Chiang mai.