A day at Nongnooch Tropical Botanical Garden, Pattaya, Thailand
~ Swati Sharma
A day's picnic at Nongnooch Tropical Garden, Pattaya
We spent a day at Nongnooch Tropical Garden and Resort in Pattaya, Thailand, and could barely keep pace with the place where there's so much to do and see. It's a place where one can happily spend the entire day. It's a mix of serenity, pleasure and novelty – landscaped gardens, Thai cultural shows, photo-ops with a tiger and chimpanzee, and the enthralling elephant-performances!
Thai Cultural Show House
Thai dancers
You can get friendly with the cute and unfortunately overfed chimpanzee, or get yourself clicked with a tiger, sadly, put on sedatives;
Friendly Chimpanzee at Nongnooch Tropical Gardens
Tiger, tiger, but not bright
There are restaurants to satiate your taste buds and brightly lit shops selling curios to take back home.
Curio Shops, Nongnooch Tropical Gardens
Garden Glory
The landscaping is beautiful and you can get absorbed in nature amidst its palm garden and countless flowering and decorative plants from all over the world.
Ants go marching in the Nongnooch Tropical gardens :-)
The long never-ending, winding pathways in this wonderland seem mystical and I felt like never coming out of the place as there was so much natural beauty to soak up.
Elephant Show
The Thai cultural show which included Thai dances, martial arts, boxing and war dance-drama was par excellence. Everything was just perfect right from the elaborate backdrops to the dances which were very graceful and well rehearsed and their colourful costumes. Their superb performances threw light on their rich culture and kudos to them for preserving it and showcasing it so well.
An elephant painting a canvas :-)
How about an elephant as your masseur?
As we moved forward a loud cheering and clapping sound made us hurry up towards itself. The most popular event - the elephant show had already begun! The elephants were all dressed up aptly for each activity. Busy with their acts like playing football, throwing darts, volleyball, basketball, cycling, ribbon dance, hoopla. They also painted t-shirts which were up for sale. After each activity the elephants would cheer themselves while standing on their hind legs and raising their front legs and trunk in the air and trumpet loudly. Then quickly they would turn to the audience sitting nearest to them and happily gobble tiny bananas showered on them mostly by eager feeders - children!