Bangkok now has the largest aquarium in Southeast Asia, so I thought it might be fun to check out. Aquariums might be my new travel thing -- seeing as I've already been to the one in Hangzhou and now the one in Bangkok, will probably go to the one in Singapore (formerly largest in SE Asia) before the year is out, and plan to hit Shanghai's in the next month or so, I figure I might as well see how many others I can add to the list. I've never really had a travel "thing" (must-see, must-collect) before, so we'll see if I can stick with it. I'm also not sure whether I'll be going anywhere else with an aquarium, which would sort of put a hitch in things.
The Bangkok aquarium (technically Siam Ocean World) is located in the basement of a large shopping mall downtown, attached to a light rail station, which makes it pretty darn convenient. I thought it was kind of funny to think of people trying on Gucci two floors above a bunch of sharks, but that's fodder for someone else's screenplay.
Anyway, it was a pretty good aquarium. One of the highlights was the glass-bottom boat tour that they take you on -- floating over the top of the main tanks! Pretty nifty. One of the things the guide told us is that when you walk through the aquarium tunnel (to view the tanks from below), the fish look about 30% smaller, but from the boat, with its flat surface, you see their true size. It seemed to be true -- from the tunnel, I thought the tiger sharks looked noticeably smaller than they had from above. There's also an option that lets you take a guided SCUBA dive into one of the tanks with the sharks, but it was a little pricey (and I was there at the wrong time anyway).
Siam Ocean World also won most innovative integration of corporate branding/sponsorship in my book. I liked a display of consumer products (mostly Sanyo, I think) that talked about reuse, disposal, and eco-friendly design. A number of appliances had been converted into 'ordinary' fish tanks, including this microwave, a refrigerator (featuring beer bottles with the fish), a washing machine, and most impressively, a Chevy station wagon (steering wheel and electronics removed, and lots of algae added).
Also, the aquarium had a giant squid. It's actually not very giant by giant-squid standards; I'd guess the block of ice surrounding this one was about 15 feet long, while larger members of the species can max out around 30-40 feet. Still, that eye is pretty darn cool. Equally impressive was the similarly-sized block of ice on the other side of the curtain, containing what I think was a giant (and again, I'm talking roughly 8 feet long) tuna. Think of all the sushi that could have been made...
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