Khao Kheow Open Zoo
Last month I was invited to take a quick trip out of the city into Chonburi to visit an “open zoo”, Khao Kheow Open Zoo to be precise. This was a novel concept to me.
I usually avoid zoos. Always have. The thought of confinement has troubled me since I was a small child and seeing anything in a cage has always been troubling to me. But I was guaranteed by my friend that this was not that kind of zoo. That the animals were just sort of there, wandering around. So I decided to tag along and see what was up.
Only about an hour – an hour and a half’s drive from Bangkok it is an easy to make day trip. And even though we hadn’t been on the road long when we arrived in the zoo’s general vicinity, we thought it best to go on and have a bit to east so we would be fully charged for a day’s worth of ambling and ogling.
And there are a number of really excellent unassuming stalls along the dusty little road that leads up to the zoo that sell something called “jar chicken”. Clay jars are used to cook marinated chicken and the work the jar does trapping all of the flavors and juices of the chicken and the marinade yields one of the most tender, juicy, and delectable pieces of bird you’re like to ever bight into.
As you drive up to the zoo you have to make one of the two difficult decisions visitors to Khao Kheow Zoo are faced with – whether to drive through the zoo in the car you came in, or to rent a golf cart. The golf cart is definitely cooler, especially when you get around some of the monkeys. But that is where the one drawback to the golf cart shows up, because monkeys have sticky fingers. So if you do decide on a golf cart you should lock anything you can’t keep strapped to your body up in the car lest it should get snatched.
The second difficult decision visitors have to make is which animals they want to see. The number of different creatures wandering around the park coupled with the high degree of interaction allowed by the open nature of the place makes it almost impossible to see everything.
I personally enjoyed the meerkats, which are (*flashes sheepish expression) VERY cute. They are right next one of the other residents I was very amused by, the giraffes. You can feed more or less anything in the zoo, and vendors at the entrance and throughout the park sell vegetables or dried food that you can feed to the animals, but the giraffes are the most fun to watch eat with their absurdly long and articulated tongues.
I saw a somewhat sleepy pair of white lions, onyx, ostrich, deer, and wandering around a small patch of grass, a troop of monkeys. Monkey moms and dads, and grandparents, even the adorable little baby monkeys, hangin’ around getting into monkey business. The rhinos were surprisingly docile and their skin (contrary to what I had expected) felt like they had been research animals for a L’Oreal lab. The penguins were showboating and flashing their feathers and beaks for hordes of wide eyed children and the birds of paradise did that ancient dance of love that they do so well.
In the final analysis, Khao Kheow Open Zoo is one of the most laid back, self driven, and engaging attractions in the Bangkok/Chonburi area that offers something for the entire family. And the area right around boasts the Khao Kheow Waterfall and a butterfly observation area. A golf course too, if you can find the time to squeeze that in. A great day and a great memory, definitely something I would recommend to any visitors to Bangkok or Pattaya.
You can hire a driver from Bangkok Beyond to take you there safely and comfortably any time, night or day.
