Woolly says – We’d spent a day buying some essentials, well according to the women they were, I certainly don’t need shampoo or shower gel to keep me looking handsome. We also wanted to save ourselves for a trip to one of Bangkok’s night markets, one metro stop away was Rod Fai Train Market noted for it’s vintage feel which sounded like something we might enjoy.
We arrived as the sun was setting and the stalls were setting up and more importantly before the masses started to arrive which enabled us to wander happily past clothes and make up stalls (including one that sold clothes for mammoths!), bag and jewellery areas and to see the fascinating food on display. For the first time we saw the delights of deep fried cockroaches, crickets and other small wiggly things that really shouldn’t go into your mouth, none of us were brave enough to try them and instead sat with our drinks watching the people walk by and enjoying the ambience of the evening.
We’d been woken by more torrential rain which sounded like elephants landing on the roof in the early hours but having managed to doze back off woke at a more reasonable time for our last day in Bangkok and in Thailand itself.
Woolly says – We’d saved one of the best places until last and as Zoe checked the clothing criteria for the third time and Jo the opening hours for the fourth, we made full use of the excellent public transport system to get us to Dusit Palace. Constructed between 1897 and 1901 by King Chulalongkorn (Rama V), the palace was originally called Wang Suan Dusit or Dusit Garden Palace and became the primary (but not official) place of residence of the King of Thailand, including King Chulalongkorn (Rama V), King Vajiravudh (Rama VI), King Prajadhipok (Rama VII), King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX) and King Vajiralongkorn (Rama X), so pretty much all the kings. Covering an area of over 64,749 square metres (696,950 sq ft) it has 13 different royal residences, plenty to keep us occupied. Our final leg of the journey gave us the boy racer of tuk tuks who seemed to be practising for the Formula 1, given his speed I felt he had a good chance of winning! As we pulled up and gratefully stepped onto the pavement I looked happily at the splendid domed building, having patted myself on the back for such a good choice (well if I don’t no one else will!) we set off to find the entrance, which also allowed us a glimpse of a incredible gold structure which I felt sure was the Throne Hall, it looked wonderful and I hurried onwards to find the gates.
I started to get an inkling that things weren’t going to be quite what we expected when I spotted sheets and sheets of grey corrugated metal starting to conceal our view, by the time we had walked half way round the outskirts I had a sense of foreboding.
Woolly says – After what seemed hours of walking in the soupy warmness I spied an opening and dashed across the road towards it, Jo seemed to have found a guard to talk to and as I tapped my paw impatiently for her to arrive my eyes travelled upwards to a sign that said ‘staff only’, they really didn’t make this an easy place to get into! I stalked towards the rest of the group and realised that the guard was shaking his head, ‘NOOOOOOOOOOO, it can’t be closed’ I shouted, Jo turned to face me and sadly shook her head as well. How can three people check the website and google so many times and not find a single thing that told us it wasn’t open! I wasn’t a happy mammoth and promptly sat down to wait for Jo to sort things out.
As far as the palace went there wasn’t a thing I could do, we did however have plan b starring us in the face.
Woolly says – As she pointed across the road I followed her finger and realised that we were right in front of Dusit Zoo, how she had magicked it to arrive at that moment I will never know but it was certainly worth a look. We crossed over and having obtained our tickets we entered a part of the former royal gardens. Thailand’s oldest Zoo was started in 1938 when the constitutional government asked King Rama VIII’s regency council to give the park to the Bangkok City Municipality to be opened as a public zoo. The King happily gave his permission as well as donating deer and a number of other animals from the palace for public exhibition. The City of Bangkok operated the zoo until 1954, when it was transferred to the state Zoological Park Organization to look after. It did look in need of some work, the penguin pool was small even for the seven inhabitants which were just able visible behind the dirty glass, the Koala’s however who were living next door had a modern and swanky homestead with lots of trees to sleep in, which was exactly what they were doing. Having passed a herd of deer we found ourselves in the nocturnal exhibit with quite an array of sleeping animals although one or two of them raised an eye at our arrival.
Many of the areas had signs telling us that they were under construction so having left the animals to continue snoozing we returned to the heat and sat watching the otters having dirt bathes.
Woolly says – The pygmy hippos were wide awake, I waved in passing as one opened his jaw wide enough to get a human in let alone a mammoth, I kept walking. The grounds were beautifully maintained, and the monkeys had a huge area dedicated to them for swinging there days away, sadly the giraffes hadn’t fared so well and had a tiny pen to share with the zebra’s, not a patch on the accommodation provided at Chester Zoo they did however have some groovy umbrellas to shelter from the sun. We passed the sleeping tigers and lions before arriving at the bear’s, a large black bear was dozing happily with his bottom half in the river, every now and then his paw would flick a fly away and snort at the intrusion on his sleep. Next door the male sun bear paced up and down whilst his family slept, a fine specimen of an animal. The reptile house provided a huge collection of snakes to terrify Jo with in a multitude of colours and sizes. The same applied to the tortoises and turtles, some of which were ten times bigger than me! One concerning factor was that all of the crocodile pens were empty, I looked around and couldn’t see a single one which worried me rather a lot, maybe they were in the Zoo’s large lake waiting to pounce and have mammoth for there lunch! I kept a wary eye on the situation as we continued. Both of the hippos were sleeping which was certainly understandable for Thailand’s oldest Hippo, Mae Malli who was fifty one last year.
We were starting to flag, the heat was oppressive and I for one felt like taking the animals example and having a nap.
Woolly says – Well Jo is getting old! Our final beast was completely awake and having a great time of throwing her grass onto her back and dragging small twigs around her habitat, the only elephant currently at the zoo seemed very happy. Although she is on her own the information board reassured us that this was a temporary situation until work had been finished on her new home when further elephants would be joining her.
Having given her a final wave I led the way towards the exit and our very last port of call, Victory Monument was erected in June 1941 to commemorate the Thai victory in the Franco-Thai War. It was hard to miss as the huge obelisk took up a whole roundabout, I would have liked to have taken a closer look but the constant traffic surrounding it would have made that tricky, Jo even refused to stand in the road to get a better shot! For the last time we made our way onto the sky train and then into the underground depths of the city and what a city, it has so much to do and see and such a variety of old and modern, something for everyone even for mammoths!