Sunday, 29 August 2010

Chiang Mai touristic musts part II


Chiang Mai zoo
Expect to pay twice and the double of what Thai people pay before you get to see the Giant Panda's, but still, seeing a Panda for the first time, made my day.

And hey, they have a 7/11 as well

Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep
You have to walk around the central gold shrine three times to get lucky. To be even more lucky they have an ATM machine nearby and lots of boxes to put the money in. Far more profitable than the example below..

Foreigners have to pay 30 Baht (€0,75/$0.95) extra for the cable car.
My argument that this was an illegitimate act according to UN resolutions, resulted in a vague smile only.
Later I found out Thailand does not recognize competence for UN ICERD article 14, whereby individuals or groups can file a complaint.

So there goes my case..

Chiang Mai Night Safari
Another must, so they say, Thai pay 100 Baht (€2,50/$3.18), foreigners 400 Baht (€10,-/$12.70). Again the UN illegitimacy thing didn't work and telling them I was Thai didn't convince them either, but considering this government owned Thaksin mind spin makes big time losses anyway and taking such a long time to get there, I hesitantly agreed. Afterwards, if at all, I think it's better to go during day time, since no flash was allowed and if the animals didn't move, the bus did.
In order to get break even they will need to earn 100 million bath/year, meaning 1100 tourist per day, with 50/50 Thai/Farang. I estimate to have seen a maximum of 300 visitors there that night, also a student who held an interview about the quality, confessed to me after 5 years it's still not profitable. There were talks about closing it down, which would probably be the best thing, but nobody in Chiang Mai would like to loose face. So it's here to stay for a lot of years more.
Above some Rhinos.

A vulture
A nice symbol for the tourist industry here, me being the prey.

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