Bangkok Zoo

[Martin Hash]

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The Dusit Zoo in Thailand is modern & well kept , and it wins the Something New at the Zoo award. Located on the Dusit Palace grounds, the "Elephant House" is across the street from The Parliament House. It had an animal we hadn't seen before, the White-handed Gibbon, which is always a plus, but other aspects of the zoo are quite bizarre. There is an old Stuffed orangutan that the kids can touch & get their pictures taken, and a deformed cross-billed pelican that the keepers taught how to eat. Many Information signs are in braille which is an interesting concept at a zoo: you wouldn't think a lot of blind people would go to see animals. There's an air raid shelter, and An Asia-Pacific War memorial. The zoo also boasts a 7-11 convenience store, KFC & two ATMs, one inside a gigantic blue elephant.

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I enjoyed hearing a group of 5-year old children were yelling "Hello!" at the lions. (Remember, they're Thai.) But most surprising was the "Hello Africa" Kenyan dancers. For 50 cents we were treated to Calypso music & limbo dancing right off a Caribbean cruise ship. Their costumes were faux white leopard, and their muscles bulged as they performed various circus acts: jump-rope, rings & acrobatics. The Thai narrator had trouble keeping up, and the audience, perhaps a 100 kids all dressed in school uniforms, were mesmerized. At the end the dancers went into the crowd of 6 or 7-year olds who graciously dug currency out of their pockets to tip them.

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