A taxi driver named Black

24 Feb 2015

Considering that Tim says black is my favorite color (I beg to differ), we ended up with a taxi driver driving a green taxi arranged by the Hotel to take us on a trip to Pattaya. The taxi driver's name was...you guessed it...."Black"!

Black agreed to take us on a 2-hour trip to Pattaya as we wanted to see the beaches and eat the seafood. However Black decided to take us to a stop along the way to visit the Sri Racha Tiger Zoo.

We had breakfast at small shop before going into the zoo. However the duck noodle was not as nice as the one at Pratunam. The tea I ordered was definitely not teh tarik (more like tea latte) as it appeared to have cream on top of it. Like I said the Thais love their ice milk tea so much cos that was what they gave me although I had ordered hot tea. Thank goodness Black was kind enough to drink it all for me!

As for the zoo, it is clearly a zoo dedicated to breeding tigers and experiments of tigers living with mother pigs feeding off its milk! 

I am not sure whether it is wise to get tigers to suck the teats of a giant 200 lb mother pig but I find it rather depressing to see baby tigers stuck in small cages with very little place to move around. I could sense the distress of the little tigers as they move around their confined spaces listlessly.

Anyway this was a tiger zoo with a difference. Dedicated to the breeding of tigers, they also had crocodile shows, elephant shows and pig racing!

The giant pig was pink in color and looked so delectable. I could just imagine the char siew and the siew yoke that could be made from it! 

However this was the zoo prized pig because it was a 'smart' pig in that it could count! Don't ask me how....

The first show we saw was the crocodile show. Strange it may be, all I could remember about my last trip to Bangkok 30 years ago was visiting the famous crocodile farm in Samut Prakarn.

I saw so many crocodiles there and I remembered the rickety walkways.....

Granted that crocodiles are not easy to train (all they like to do is stay in the shallow waters to keep cool), they were also very lethargic. I suspect they must have been fed their midday meal if not the 2 trainers would have their heads chopped off by the reptilians! Part of the crocodile act was for them to put their heads into the open mouths of the crocodiles! I just could not bear to see it. This was the highlight of the show other than the trainers sitting, riding or putting their hands into the crocodile mouths. However the lady and the man trainer must be credited for doing an excellent job.

The tiger show was more interesting. An array of 8 tigers paraded in a round cage. As the trainers fed them bits of chicken meat, we saw how they got the tigers to stand up and do the famous Thai greeting of putting both paws together "sawadee ka" to the audience. This was really ingenious!

The tigers were also invited to sit on circus like ledges build in ascending fashion. There they stood up on their hind paws to greet the audience. Later they 2 trainers got some of the tigers to jump through empty hoops, hoops with paper that smashed when the tigers jumped through them and hoops with fire around the rings!

After the tiger show, we went to see the elephant show. The elephants were by far the smartest. They could throw darts, carry their trainers with their trunks, on their backs and do massages on those willing to try the elephant massage!

At the tiger zoo, I managed to try the famous Thai mango juice and I was hooked! 

Thai mangoes are exceptionally sweet and fibrous not to mention really gigantic. I also had the chance to eat some fruits at the zoo something that I had missed for the past one day in Bangkok. 

The young lady suggested a stop at J Park. Black had not been there before but gamely asked his friends. As it turned out J stood for Japanese and it was a park containing all things Japanese. Why all this fixation with Japanese food, Japanese scenery, Japanese souvenirs, I wonder. I opted to rest while dad and daughter wandered off to take photos around the Park. Regretted it later as I saw the beautiful photos of the Japanese gardens which they showed me.

Here I wandered into the Japanese supermarket and bought some udons and Japanese noodles to share with family members back home.

From J Park we headed to Pattaya. We stopped at a place called Nangnual for lunch. Nangnual had a fantastic scenery of the famous Pattaya beach and the sea.

For me the beaches of Pattaya are really lovely. They were pristine white and really clean.

Here at Nangnual, the daddy had pineapple rice in a pineapple while the young lady had coconut rice in a coconut! Simply scrumptious.

As for me, all I had was a plate of very delicious lime-tasting fruit salads (I was really starved of fruits) and the delicious Thai dessert called tap tim krob (water-chestnuts coated in a pink jelly served in a bowl of sweetish coconut milk).

Black took us passed the a-go-go bars which he said were very active at night. He even described to us what happened in the a-go-go bars (censored).

The highest point of Pattaya is very beautiful. Overlooking Pattaya and parts of Bangkok, we saw green scenery and rows and rows of buildings at one end and the blue green of the sea at the other end. A shutterbug's haven for sure. 

The young lady asked Black to take us to Chocolateville after that. Now even Black had not been there because it was only newly opened. 

We were glad we could go as the first sight of the fairy tale lights and the little structures of windmills, Dutch-inspired houses, farm-houses, sheeps, dainty sculptures was a photographer's paradise. Even a couple in their wedding garb took ages to get a perfect shot on a classic bicycle with the Dutch-inspired scenery as its background.

I think I should be forgiven if my first thought was 'Why a little bit of Amsterdam in Bangkok?' and why the name 'Chocolateville' when there was no chocolate shops around?

Going into Chocolateville, we were simply amazed that the entire place was actually a huge restaurant. Other than that the service was disappointing and the food was pricey.

I ordered an avocado dessert which came without the dressing I ordered. A bowl of mashed potato without any gravy and without the chicken that was supposed to be the chef recommendation on the menu. The saving feature was the basket of chips and the 3 pork meat buns that the chef recommended (which buns were not from Bangkok but rather from Hong Kong). We waited quite some time for our orders to be taken and like forever before the food came.

Frustrated we asked for the bill and found that we had been overcharged for one item which the waiter kindly reduced it for us.

Other than this episode, our outing was fun because of the tiger zoo and Pattaya.