On Thursday last week, the day after tanks started bumping around Bangkok and Chiang Mai, the Tired Family took a day off and headed to the zoo. We went with our friend Nong, a truly gracious Thai woman (of course, "gracious" and "Thai" are redundant) who is "practicing" to be an au pair in "America" (as they insist on calling it here. When you say you're from the United States, blank stare. I'd point out that "America" is a hemisphere, not a country; but what would be the point?).
Back to Nong... Her "practice" means three weeks of baby care and some cool field trips for us, as Nong has a car! No need to pile into the back of the pick-up taxis (or songtaew) and sit on the welded bench to get from place to place. Did I mention the rich mix of exhaust which filters through? What I wouldn't give for a week of Germantown air.
Our day at the zoo started with coffee! As you might have guessed. This one an iced latte with a frangipanni flower drawn in pure cane syrup on the foam. Small things here can be quite beautiful, though the landscape is a concrete wasteland. After coffee, we folded ourselves (I did, anyway) into the little red Diahatsu and headed to the gates of the Chiang Mai Zoo.
It's a humble little zoo, really. The animals look reasonably well, for the most part. The enclosures are, to my eye, small and heavily trodden from fence to fence; but we found a way to have a nice time. Jimmy met his first giraffe, who ambled right over and said hello. Then Nong wanted a family photo of us on the zoo tram, so we all three hopped into the back seat.
Then, the tram took off. Nong jumped on, and we quickly realized we were being whisked away, far away, from our little red Diahatsu and the diapers! We made a loop around the whole zoo, back to the car; which gave a quick view of the essentials. By this point, Amnat was threadbare (which happens to at least one of us hourly), so we did a couple of feedings and diaper changes before picking one more animal to visit. The penguins.
We trammed over to the penguin house, all alone, I might add. The zoo was essentially devoid of visitors and rather threadbare itself. We climbed up a good twenty concrete steps, each one hand-formed and completely unlike the others in rise and width, for a vertical climb of about twenty-five feet. Not a visit for the feeble, or the heavily sleep-deprived, I might add.
Concrete and air-conditioned, the inside of the penguin house was like a tight drum. Jimmy figured this out in about sixty seconds. The penguins were clumped together on their concrete shoreline looking a little bored, when Jimmy started to squeal and squeak in a most delightful baby way. One penguin, and eventually another, ventured into the water to swim over and check him out. It was the thrill of our day.
After cavorting with the penguins, we slid back onto the tram; Jimmy holding on to his Paw's shirt with tight little fists (the wind through his hair was definitely a new experience), and we folded ourselves (or I did anyway) back into the little red Diahatsu for the ride home.
