Saturday, January 7, 2012

Khaokeow Open Zoo-Chonburi-Thailand

 I took a one week off from the office before the new year and what a wonderful time i had throughout those times getting free from all the paperworks and related issues...more importantly i got to spend lovely times with my love T which now has reached its 2nd year..and getting better....

What i love about him is that he shares the same passion to travel places and see many interesting attractions similar to mine and he took great pleasure in taking pictures of sceneries and also serious in ensuring he captured them perfectly. Thus, modeling for him would require me to take stand in few positions or be in the same positions with the same background for few times until he is satisfied that the picture taken is perfect.

during the recent holiday, we visited another interesting place outside of Bangkok, located in Chonburi province which was the Khaokeow Open Zoo.

It wont be a problem if you are driving or hiring a guide to travel to this place but if you are taking public transport, i believe you may need to take multiple rides to reach this place. Once you have reached Chonburi, you may need to travel further using inner country roads which lead to this zoo.

Travelling from Bangkok took us about one-hour to reach Chonburi...


from here follow the road sign leading to the zoo....


later you'll be greeted with wonderful scenery of the countryside..i told T this scenery reminds me of Perth in summer....


and finally reached the main entrance to the zoo...we got to pay the Thai entrance fee due to T...if i recall it was around 70baht for locals and higher for outsiders. You also need to pay entrance fees of 50baht if you drive your own car.


you may also rent a buggy car at a price and limited for 2 hours to explore the zoo...walking on foot is not recommended as the area is vast and wide and further segmented to different types of attractions.

map of the zoo

Colourful iguana...i hate reptiles...but T loves them... ;)



then we entered into another compound full of deer lazying around and free to be touched and fed...you may buy veggie to feed the deer at 20baht....




more deer..this type is different from the ones left to roam free, and these are captive in enclosure....



for hippo lovers..you'll not be dissappointed...

next we made our way to the aviary with many exotic and colourful birds roam freely therein....







a wonderful thing about this aviary is that the walkway leads to the top of the canopy so that you'll have a "bird's eye view" of the enclosure and the birds living in the same...









T admiring the bird....



we moved further up and arrived at an open spaced area where all the animals such as giraffe, zebra, ostriches and wildebeest are kept....


T was mesmerized by these animals and captured them in actions....



rhinoceros enclosure called the Rhino Club...however i do feel quite alarmed that they only have minimal separation between the visitors area and the rhino whereby all these rhinos have their sharp horns still intact....





other animals in the zoo...




we really had a wonderful time at the open zoo. This place is suitable for families with young children as they will surely be mesmerized with their close encounters with these animals. They also have a night safari here which runs from 7pm. If you have sufficient time in your holiday to Bangkok, do make sometime for an excursion outside of Bangkok and visit this open zoo as im sure you'll have a similar wonderful experience as mine-Kay2012

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Halal Seafood Stop-Bangsaen Beach, Chonburi- Thailand

First and foremost happy new year to all of you! Wish the new year will bring more happiness, good luck and love...

I had a wonderful time enjoying my new year's holiday with my love T and my friend in Bangkok. In fact i was there for the longest time to date which was 8 days in total.

I spent the most part of the week with T before he went back to Isan to celebrate the new year with his family. New year is much celebrated by the Bangkokians or the Thai people in general whereby they would have the longest public holiday during this time of the year and most of the  Bangkokians would fled out of the city to their hometowns.

As i had a long time to spend with T, we ventured out of the city to the outside province and this time we decided to visit Chonburi province, located around 90km from Bangkok. There are many tourist attractions which can be found here but most are not well known to outsiders compared to other travel magnets of Pattaya or Ayutthaya. One of the notable must see place in Chonburi is Bangsaen beach.

In contrast to Pattaya which is flocked by foreigners, Bangsaen is more popular with the local people, thus you may not see many bars or even bikini clad female on the beach. It is said that the beach will be crowded during the weekends and luckily for us we went there during weekdays, so the beach was quite deserted and quite.

Looking for halal food here was a non issue as there are many halal stalls among the line up of stalls along the beach side for you to choose from. You may order the food and eat at the beach chairs, chargeable at THB30 or you may just eat at the table set up by the stall owners themselves, which is free.

A roundabout welcoming you to Bangsaen Beach


endless line of foodstalls with fresh seafood on offer






you may seat at the beach chair but take note of the charge of THB30




we ordered a seafood tomyam...


the menu.....




and a stir fried crab meat.......


price was on the high side but the seafood was really fresh. Portion was adequate for sharing as well.

T did not enjoy it as much and he grumpily complained that the food was expensive and not delicious. as for me i think they were on the okay side..i just kept quite as sometimes i love to see him complaint about things as he looks boyishly cute doing it :)