I Just Can't Wait to be King!

[Saturday September 8th]
Welcome! Come one, come all, to the Greatest Show on Earth! Oh, wait, just a moment... Thats for a Circus... Hmm, what do Zoo's have for a song or a tagline? Hmm... Well, uh, Welcome to the Taiping Zoo! Nick and I headed to Peninsular Malaysia (Across the big bridge) to Teiping.
It was my First time at this zoo. I was excited to get to go! In the past year I've had some wonderful opportunities to see exotic creatures on their home turf. From Kiwi's in New Zealand and Whales off of Kaikoura to Kangaroos in Australia. Now I'd get a chance to see the locals here in Malaysia! They've got my favorite Monkey, the Orangutan, favorite Cat, The Tiger, and favorite Animal, the Elephant!
Like many zoos, they have a mass transit system here. Its not a monorail, but a several car cart system. To our surprise most of the visitors see the zoo via the cars! Too me, getting to walk through the park, stopping as long as we'd want at each exhibit is key. They missed out on some of the best parts of the zoo as you'll soon see. Well starting out there was some fun loving monkeys. These gibbons were out and having fun. I took a snapshot of one of them just hanging out on a tree. He was real cute. Just hanging there looking at us as if we were the animals in the zoo. The park is really open here, many of the animals such as the Monkeys really have the run of the park. You'd see them just about anywhere, in any enclosure, and out. They seem to like staying at their 'home' though. Below these guys was a moat-like pond. Nick, who'd been here before, was telling be they had a fish in there that must be 20 foot long. I was thinking to my self, whatever Nick... Well I didn't see anything... at first... We walked past a placard that showed an illustration of a man next to one of the giganto fish. It was twice as tall as him! A fish from the Amazon. Again, 'whatever' crossed my mind. Then, in the depths of the murky water I saw a growing orangeish shape. Then a few feet down another, a few more feet, another. Must be some Koi in there I thought. Then, wham, this massive fish came to the surface, and its full size became apparent. Wow, must have been 14+ feet long! No kidding! Too bad I didn't have my camera ready, ok it was ready but I was to stunned to take a photo. As soon as it appeared it was gone back to its murky depths.

A little further down the path we saw some Owls. Now these owls gave me the Heebie-Jeebies! As you can see in the picture, they have sheer black eyes. They look at you with these empty eyes. They brought back some old feelings. After a while I recalled what it was. An old animated move, 'The Secret of NIMH'. Oh, that was it. That scary Owl in that show . Well now I've seen the real owl, he's no to big and terrifying... ;)

Ah, onto to the next, and my favorite event of the day! Nick and I were chatting away as we were walking from one exhibit to another. A guy walked up holding a big cat. No it wasn't just a cat, and big isn't quite right. He was holding a Lion Cub! He said it was about 2 months old. He asked if we wanted to hold it. We had a bit of apprehension, as one could imagine. Well we got over it. I got to hold little Simba! I felt like Rafiki in the Lion King! He's bigger and heaver than I would have thought. Man, I want one! So cute and fluffy. Awe...

Well not far down the path was the little guys Dad. He seemed quite agitated, maybe he was a bit upset his son had gone missing? In the video I compiled below, you can hear his roaring. I've never heard a Lion grunt like that! Poor guy!

So as we were walking along there was a 'African Plains' exhibit to our right. Any guesses as to what the first animal I saw was? Well I bet you're wrong, it was a Cow! It looked like a Texas Long Horn (but it wasn't, whew). Take a good long look at this picture. Which animals don't belong? I don't think I can answer that one but it sure is an eclectic group of animals. Lets see if you can find a: Cow, Zebra, Ostrich, Gazelle, Monitor Lizard, Crane, and a strange bird...

We came across a set of Sun Bears. These guys look excited and seem to want to say Hello! They are at the edge of their enclosure leaning out with a big grin. They might look a little cognitively challenged but don't forget about the big claws they have, seriously, take a look at them! Jeez! The last time I'd seen one of these guys was at the San Diego Zoo.

Well It started to rain on us. Its kind of funny actually, the locals scamper to find shelter but we're out just getting a little bit of a sprinkle. The animals didn't seem to mind the rain either, just out enjoying the nice drop in temperature and soothing water. We stopped and took a look at the reptiles briefly, and we found this guy. This has got to be the biggest monitor lizard on the planet! Just below him is a a 6 foot long crocodile, lets just say that the Croc has nothing on the lizard ;)

What Zoo wouldn't be complete without some of the big gray beasts? Namely Hippos, Rhinos, and Elephants? Well this one had all three, yippee! The Hippos seemed all too content to wallow in their big pond so not much excitement there. The Rhinos though, nature's natural tanks, they seemed to have taken a bit of a likening to Nick and I. Once they spotted us the seemed to follow us around as we walked along their enclosure. They are lumbering beasts thats for sure. Don't let them get mad at me!

Well Finally, at the very end, saving the best for last, was the elephant enclosure. They had a herd of them. Strangely they called them 'Malay Elephants'. Sadly, there are only two species of elephants left in the World. Namely the African and Asian species. I'm sure that these are Malaysian 'native' elephants but are of the Asian species. Anyway, the elephants were awesome. They had baby elephants, awe the little Dumbo. I could have just stood there indefinitely watching them. I don't know what it is about elephants that I like so much but they seem so human. They cry, they dance, they protect. Check out the video I compiled and you can see some elephants in action.

The Zoo tour was over, time to get some refreshments. As everyone knows, I'm a big Root Beer fan and disappointingly they don't have Root Beer here. Or so I thought! Looking for some water I found this in a store. Ah good Olde Rut Bir! So Klasik! ;) Though I only gave it a 3 of 10 on the Terry Scale of Root Beer, it was refreshing.

We left the zoo and headed to the Lake Park just down the road. Wow, what a great park to stroll through! We didn't walk much ourselves but we had a good vantage point to look around. The water was eerily calm, the lawns rolled gently down and into the lakes. It was beautiful.


Oh, check out the video compilation I put together of the zoo. Its worth it ;)


-Terry