I STILL wrestle with my decision whenever I visit zoos. So often the animals look so sad, isolated in cages, appearing painfully thin or bored.
Even under these circumstances, I still wonder whether life for them is better in captivity, where they are (usually) well fed and kept safe, or in their natural habitat, where many species are continually under threat, ironically from us, humans.
However, zoos and wildlife parks offer us the opportunity to see wild animals up close. And in Chiang Mai the zoo is better than most I have experienced. Many of the animals roam freely or in large spaces.
They have in Chiang Mai a zoo and a popular attraction called the Night Safari (although it is open during the day also).
And our kids have been fortunate to have experienced some intimate, close encounters with animals they would never have seen other than on television or computers or in books and magazines.
Zenchai and Kobra loved feeding giraffes in Chiang Mai, where you can buy food for the animals and hand it to them.
These tremendously tall creatures with incredibly long tongues literally took food from my young daughter's hands and kept coming back for more.
The same happened with elephants, those awesome, big animals, though I couldn't help but feel sorry for them having to wear such clumsy, large chains around their ankles.
We saw elephants up close in India, too, where they are 'used' in so many of the street parades.
In Ubud, Bali, our animal experience got even better at the Monkey Forest. Here although the monkeys live wildly in the trees, they are at ease with humans, probably because they are fed by them every day.
They still have to be approached with caution, as do most wild animals, but essentially they are only after your food. And if you treat them with respect (and don't stroke their heads), all should be okay. One or two people did complain of being bitten, though we saw tourists throwing them sweets and other food items clearly not suited for monkeys.
On our first visit we took with us one banana (though they can be purchased at the forest entrances) and almost before Zenchai could take it out of our bag a monkey swooped and grabbed it off him.
I had a unique moment with one infant monkey, though. I just held out my arm high to the side with a piece of food in my palm and the fearless monkey climbed up me and, resting on my hands, happily ate away. At one point the monkey even looked me in the eye and pinched my nose, more out of curiosity than anything else. His padded hands were so soft.
I think at this point Zenchai could see he had little to fear, especially from the small ones, and he endeavoured to feed them, first picking up pieces of sweet potato that had been chopped and left for them by the forest attendants and then old coconuts.
He had more success with the latter, picking up a shell that had been left aside and then offering it to a larger monkey, who extended his hand and took it for consumption.
This was a real, live and priceless educational experience for my kids - one they could see, smell and feel.
It wasn't just about being around monkeys and feeding them, but understanding how they live, feed and survive and also how we humans treat and value them.
Zenchai, as ever, asked many questions, but also liked the monkeys so much that he said he wanted one for himself, which opened up the discussion as to why wild animals are called wild and should remain precisely that.
Excellent animal images, The monkey images are awesome.
Posted by: Asian Travel Guide | 03 September 2012 at 11:43 AM