We decided to explore the park first on foot and save the drive through for the end. Buying the tickets was a bit of an adventure, because there are two prices, Thai price and farang price. Our neighbor's husband is Thai, and her daughter has a Thai passport. She also told us to bring our Nichada ID cards to show that we live in Thailand. It was worth making a fuss, because farang price is more than double Thai price. After waving her daughter's passport around for a bit, she got us all Thai price, which was awesome.
Once we got through the main gate we were greeted by several "animals" in costume. It took a while to get through, since Vivi wanted her picture taken with all of them. We thought we were done and were taking a family picture when the giraffe photobombed us.
We gave him 20 baht and sent him on his way. After that, we wandered and looked at the wild life. There was a lot of shade from all the trees, so it kept the heat manageable, and we brought lots of water. Jeff took literally hundreds of pictures of the flora and fauna, so I can't include them here, but I will include one of him in the bird enclosure :-)
He brought Vivian in with him, and I stayed outside with Elena. Vivi lasted five minutes before ducking for cover and putting her arms over her head. Turns out she shares mommy's fear of birds, rather than daddy's fearless spirit.
After her scare with the birds, we decided to do an activity we knew would be a hit, feeding the giraffes. There's a platform that you walk up to that puts you roughly on eye level with the giraffes. You can buy a bucket of little bananas, and they give you a stick to skewer them with and offer them up to the giraffes. Vivi loved it.
Ever the egalitarian, she noticed that some of the shorter giraffes weren't getting as many of the bananas, so she took her stick and went to the lower part of the platform to make sure they got fed too.
After the giraffes, it was on to the elephant show. The elephant shot darts at balloons, played basketball and soccer, and even did some painting. After the show Vivi got a photo op with one of the stars.We were just doing the standard girl in front of elephant shot when the elephant minder picked Vivi up and put her on the elephant's trunk. She wasn't one hundred percent sure about it at first,
but then she decided to just go for it.
By that point we needed some air conditioning, so we went to Egg World. In Egg World they have pictures showing how a bird embryo develops, and they also have the real thing. There's a room with eggs in their incubators. Then there's a special incubator room with eggs that are about to hatch. After that is the room with brand new baby birds, and then the room with slightly more developed (but still not fully feathered) baby birds. There was a bird scientist of some kind walking around in scrubs and taking care of the birds. It was interesting, and the air conditioning made it particularly enjoyable.
As we were walking towards the exit, we agreed that we were all tired and hungry, so we opted to pick up lunch, eat in the van, and just head home rather than doing the thirty minute safari drive through. It turned out to be the right choice, since the kids were all clearly wiped out. Plus we knew we had to rest up, because tonight was also our first night market at the Secret Garden.
The Secret Garden is mostly parking lot with a stage at one end, but they've been setting up lights and stalls for a couple days now, so we were excited to see what it would look like finished. We also knew there would be super moon bounce slides, so Vivi was excited.
We wanted to wait until it got dark to get the full effect, but the storm clouds were moving in which could mean nothing or it could mean downpour. We knew if we missed the whole thing we'd be bummed, so we left while it was still a little light. Luckily, it's close enough for us to walk, because the street was fully parked on both sides with a collection of cars, golf carts, and bikes.
Once we got there, we were greeted by ladies handing out flower necklaces and Spider Man.
There was no explanation for why Spider Man was there, but he was friendly and perfectly happy to have his picture taken with Viv.
Of course, Viv made a beeline for the two huge moon bounce slides at one end.
The tickets were timed entry and the next one started in five minutes, so we got her a ticket. The ticket got her thirty minutes in the moon bounce. Lots of the neighborhood kids were also going in, so she had a blast bouncing and climbing with her buddies. While she was doing that, Jeff and I walked around to look at the food and crafts. It was small, but fun, especially since we kept bumping into people we knew and could chat with.
After the moon bounce, a red cheeked Vivi settled down at the play dough table, an ingenious set up where the kids could play with the play dough and accessories for free and their parents could buy them from the stall next to the play table. I got suckered into buying purple and pink containers of play dough.
Walking home Viv was wilting, but we revived her with a jam sandwich and some melon, so that she could play with her new play dough for a while before bedtime. I think she will sleep well tonight :-)
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