I'm in Bangkok at the moment so must get back to Dusit Zoo as I don't recall the aquarium, reptile house or bird island?!
the reptile house was pretty good as I recall. The Bird Island has lots of glass-fronted aviaries (with bad reflections unfortunately - but they had birds of paradise amongst other things there).
The aquarium is a fairly small building with a facade decorated with sharks between the tapir and serow enclosures. It's a strange building with a moral code which seems to differ from much of the rest of the zoo. The ticket desk outside shows off a two-headed stripe-necked turtle. The reptile complex is very well done, and the pair of red birds of paradise is very nice.
The last two days I've been trying to get to the zoo but failed. I think I'll leave it til next time. Both days I've got to the Asian side of the city; yesterday I was told at the station that the train I had planned to take hadn't run for two years, and today I was told that the bus would be a complex four-step journey taking at least 2.5 hours (already an hour away from my hotel). I guess next time I'll either take the train, should it run again, or hopefully I'll be able to afford a taxi/hire a car. Yesterday I ended up at Istanbul dolphinarium instead. And so I've left Asia for what I think is the last time this trip.
Quite an adventure you had, it's been a good read. Looking forward to your photos (hopefully the files aren't damaged!)
Thanks very much - luckily I've managed to squeeze in another trip within the next few weeks, so it's not over yet. I've managed to salvage most photos but I may have permanently lost most of my River Safari photos. We'll see what I can do.
I'm now back in London for a few more days. Before leaving Istanbul I was hoping to quickly visit a mini zoo near the airport but it wasn't possible. On Sunday I fly again, this time to Spain.
And now the end of my journey approaches. In little over two weeks I'll fly back to the UK for the last time this summer. Meanwhile, I'll be enjoying the Costa del Sol with my family, and I've set aside 4 days to travel alone. Although there will be a zoological aspect, there's no guarantee as to what/how much I'll see. During the last week, I managed trips to Golders Hill Park Zoo (in London) and London Zoo. I intend to write a bit about the Istanbul aquaria as soon as I can, but I'm wondering whether I should write a decent review rather than one of my brief updates. We'll see how much time I have.
Turkuazoo Istanbul It’s quite difficult to establish much information about Istanbul’s aquariums online, with a lot of people mixing up Turkuazoo and Istanbul Akvaryum. I’ve been following both for several years but still hadn’t got a clear enough picture of the situation, so I intended to find out a lot more when I visited. Strangely, there was even more confusion in Istanbul itself. It doesn’t help that each aquarium sometimes uses the name of the other (with variations of ‘Turkuazoo Akvaryum Istanbul’ emerging). Both made similar claims of being ‘super/giant aquariums’ of some sort. Even staff at tourist information desks were assuring me that there is only one aquarium in Istanbul. But the internet had taught me better. So I made my way to Turkuazoo. The aquarium was pleasant with a number of rare fish. I had been assured online that certain species were on display, but a number of these were absent. This is definitely the smaller aquarium, with much more of a standard set-up. Different tanks are given titles which create a zoogeographical clash, but they seem well stocked. It was also nice to see a number of stranger fish which weren’t from the Mediterranean basin. The layout of the aquarium is effectively two floors, with the entrance from the upper floor. The lower floor is a large hall & walkthrough tunnel tank, set at the far end of the aquarium, and the upper floor is essentially a long hallway, split in the middle, with each lane leading to/away from the escalator to the lower floor. The tanks on both levels are very good. There’s a fair bit to be improved, but it was overall quite a pleasant visit. For the sake of completion, this is the aquarium which featured in the Turkish soap ‘ömre bedel’ which I mentioned elsewhere, but there was no sign of most of the species I mentioned. Given the helpfulness of staff who replied to my emails and messages, I a bit disappointed in the stern approach of staff at the aquarium on the day. I thought this might be because I’d grown used to South East Asian service, but I found that I was impressed at the next aquarium, so I guess it was probably justified.
Istanbul akvaryum Istanbul akvaryum (Istanbul aquarium) is an excellent aquarium. I’m not sure whether it can statistically stand on its claims to be Europe’s biggest or the world’s largest thematic aquarium, but it is truly excellent. There are a number of large tanks, and theming throughout is exceptional. There’s a lot of free space in most of the exhibit areas. Initially I found it fairly distracting as it removed some of the effect of the theming, but as I walked through the aquarium I found that it was actually very well done, and space was strategically used so that I imagine it rarely feels uncomfortably crowded. The standard of signage was incredible. There was a hall dedicated to the Suez Canal with a statue of Ferdinand de Lesseps and a bilingual sign describing Lessepsian migration (without using the term). In this, and a number of other exhibit spaces, there were no fish on display. A shame in some areas, like Antarctica, but theming and educational signage did a lot of good work. The initial part of the aquarium actually introduces the visitor to Turkish history and continues to walk them through a great deal of historical, mythological and scientific content at a very high standard. I felt like it was a hybrid aquarium-museum, which I really liked. There were a number of large tanks, but the main tank was much more impressive than I had expected, having seen it from above earlier in the visit, and having read that it was supposed to be shallower than Turkuazoo’s main tank (which it certainly wasn’t.) The rainforest area was probably the best immersive rainforest I’ve seen at an aquarium, and so much of what they did was original. I really liked this place, and I kept wondering whether it sits comfortably in Europe’s top aquaria – Lisbon being my main point of comparison. It’s certainly an amazing aquarium, and probably is one of Europe’s top. Although I feel a little bit uncomfortable with placing it in the same league as Lisbon; I felt that if it had just one more major attraction (e.g. a manta/devil ray), then it most certainly would be in that league. But then if a single ray is all it takes, then it’s probably already there.
Istanbul dolphinarium Istanbul dolphinarium is an attraction with minimal advertising – I wouldn’t have known anything about it were it not for online references and research beforehand. The dolphinarium is a worryingly small complex. Worrying because most of the available area is used up by a stadium, and the remainder seems to be mostly empty/office space. What’s left for the marine mammals seems very small, but it’s all off-limits. The opening times are quite limited, allowing only for swimming with the dolphins and the dolphin show (6 times per week). The show is quite long, including performances from a pair of fur seals, Sara, the large walrus, a large beluga, and a pair of dolphins. Not too much is very special and it’s mostly on Youtube. I felt that the animals were well trained, but I didn’t like a lot of things are generally common to these kinds of places (very loud noises, ridiculous photo opportunities, limited space for animals…). This was only my second standalone dolphinarium, and my first dolphinarium which had no other attractions. Again the audience was mostly schoolchildren (as with Safari World Bangkok), but the show didn’t have such a mesmerising effect on them – although I got the feeling that most of the children left feeling impressed.
Selwo Aventura And now that I’m up to date for Turkey, I can write about my Spanish trip. Today I visited Selwo Aventura. A strange zoo. Overpriced but generally quite nice. As mentioned on tripadvisor and publicity material, the zoo can be thought of in three sections: firstly, a flat area for aviaries, domestics, ‘Children’s Zoo animals’, and some additions (inc. primates, cheetah and hyena). The middle area is an uphill track through a lemur walkthrough, past lynx, bobcat and otter enclosures, and through an aviary which is apparently ‘Europe’s largest’. The furthest area is a trail which leads around a safari area. For an additional fee (15€), guests can ride a scheduled truck around the safari route. We stuck with the surrounding path. This is home to most of the zoo’s African animals, with Asian elephants standing out as large exceptions. The view from this area is amazing. On completing the route you have to return the way you came through the middle zone (now going downhill.) A pleasant trip, but the high entrance cost is not very well justified. Layvisitors were saying that they didn’t enjoy having to walk a lot; especially walking a long distance steeply uphill and then retracing their steps. Just the design of the place, I guess. The view was worth it for me.
Butterfly Park Benalmadena Following a failed visit to the Garden of Eagles (via Teleferico Benalmadena) - which didn't have scheduled showtimes easily available online, I visited Butterfly Park Benalmadena. Said to be Europe's largest butterfly park, it has a strong association with Mariposario del Drago in Tenerife - at least I thought so until I got there. There are still links on the website, but I didn't notice any mention of the Tenerife collection in Benalmadena, despite there being plenty of references in Tenerife. The main hall obviously bears some resemblance to the Tenerife collection, with a few nice additions, most notably a free-ranging tammar wallaby. My visit didn't take long. I also enjoyed the view over Benalmadena from just outside the butterfly park.
Paloma Park Next, I stumbled across Paloma Park. Shamefully I hadn't seen mhale's photos on here or heard about the animals there, so I got a bit lost and visited by chance. There are mouflon and emu enclosures, as well as an empty aviary and some free-ranging birds (I didn't see any peafowl though). All in really nice gardens. A very pleasant surprise.
Sea Life Benalmadena Spain's only Sea Life Centre. Looks like a good thing that it's the only one. Not much very special here, but it was nice to see Janss' pipefish in reasonable numbers, and a peach sea slug. I've been getting a lot slower at visiting aquariums recently, but I still managed this one in around an hour, despite seeing most of it twice. It reminded me a lot of Chessington's Sea Life Centre, with the small size and gloomy feel. A bit of a shame, really.
Selwo Marina Today I started with a visit to Selwo Marina Dolphinarium. Another place which I'd previously passed and enquired about showtimes. A nice collection, which combined the dolphin and sealion shows. The five dolphins were quite impressive, and all the animals seemed well-trained. The park was a fair bit smaller than expected, but quite nicely done. The penguin exhibit was a bit of a disappointment, as it could have been so much better with cleaner viewing panels and a less pungent atmosphere, but it was still ok.
Paloma Park 2 To get to where I parked the car, we walked through the park a couple of times. More turtles, ducks and geese than I noticed last time. Still no peafowl though.
Crocodile Park I also visited the Crocodile park in Benalmadena. Home to over 200 crocodilians (mostly Nile crocodiles, with a few American alligators), the centre seems to push a bit too much in an attempt to justify the price. For instance, a simple education hall is given fifteen minutes on a suggested itinerary, where five minutes are enough in reality. The suggested programme lasts at least 90 minutes without including the guided tour, but that's far too long. The highlight of the visit is certainly the guided tour. Informative and interactive, followed by a feeding session and photo opportunities. Some of the crocodiles are taunted a bit, but less than other similar places I've recently seen.
