Now there’s very little notable about Samut Prakan – one of the fishing town’s two sights, the Ancient City, is a park with scaled-down models of all of Thailand’s famous monuments and sounds a bit shit. The other sight however holds a little more interest. Its name – Samut Prakan Crocodile Farm & Zoo – doesn’t really do it justice. This isn’t your average zoo with a few crocs and some other animals; this is a zoo with 60,000 crocodiles and some other animals.
Now I have mixed feelings about zoos. The idea of them excites me because it means I (and other people) get to see amazing and beautiful animals you might otherwise never clap eyes on in your lifetime. And yet when I walk around them (the same happened at both this place and Dusit Zoo in Bangkok) I get a little depressed and feel bad that I’m encouraging the captivity of these creatures that should be out and about running around.
Of course some zoos do some amazing work as well in terms of preserving species etc etc and we could argue the pros and cons of them for hours, but generally, when you walk around them, it’s hard to avoid the feeling that these animals aren’t entirely happy being caged up and stared at. At Dusit, for example, I could tell myself it was the stupidly humid weather making them lethargic, but I knew that wasn’t all of it.
Here in Thailand as well, you worry about these animals in the care of a people who, I have seen again and again, have a very relaxed attitude to things. Now most of the time I find it refreshing and enjoy the idea of their laidback lifestyle, but you worry a bit when it comes to things like zoos. I mean, I saw absolutely no evidence whatsoever of low standards at Dusit; it was as good as any zoo I’ve been to before. But the croc farm gave me a few things to think about in terms of what is cruelty to animals.
Jess and I get up earlyish and get on the 511 bus to Samut Prakan. It goes all the way through central Bangkok and takes a good two hours to get to the town. It is a painful, bum-killer of a journey, relieved only by the presence of our iPods and the amazing sight of a three-headed elephant statue situated in a temple near Samut Prakan. It’s possibly the biggest statue I have ever seen in my life. It is black and freakishly large and neither Jess nor I can work out what it is made from, or how on earth they made it.
We get off in Samut Prakan, with no idea how to get to the farm. Luckily there’s no need for us to work it out as a host of sawngthaew drivers spot us and beckon us over. One says he’ll take us there and, bereft of any other ideas, we go for it. It only costs us 30 baht – no rip-off or anything!
Walking into the farm, the signage has the feel of a circus and, as we find out, unfortunately it’s not an unfair comparison.
The crocs themselves have got it good. You might argue that they’re in captivity, they’re not free; therefore they haven’t got it good. But let’s just say they’ve got it good for animals in captivity. There are literally thousands of them but the farm supplies them with ample space, both on land and in water. While they farm the animals to supply the demand for croc shoes, handbags, croc meat, etc etc, they also have a breeding programme in place so the species isn’t threatened.
Not by farming anyway. They do get threatened during the ‘croc wrestling’ show. When Jess and I enter the farm we realise we’re by the little stadium that hosts the show and one is soon to start. We buy some crisps and Coke to stave off our need for lunch and settle in, some of the few farang there. It’s a mostly Thai audience, probably cos not many visitors to Bangkok would venture out this far, unless you’re staying here (like us) for some time.
In the middle of the mini-stadium there is a concrete island, around which there is a moat of water that is full to the brim of crocodiles. They’re not massive, the largest being maybe two metres long, but you’d still be unhappy if you found one in your bed. Two Thai dudes in shiny red shorts and shiny red waistcoats emerge from a gate and walk along a walkway over the moat on to the island to the sound of some awful Thai pop. They walk around the moat, sometimes walking into the water, tapping the noses of the crocodiles to make them snap their jaws. It’s the most uncomfortable sound, just realising the power behind those jaws (up to 3,000 pounds per square inch apparently) and what they could do. But you feel sorry for the animals, being agitated like that, and it’s here I first start to feel unsure about the ethical standing of this place.
The two Thai guys drag a few crocs out by their tails onto the island, where they sit with their mouths open (why do crocs do this??) for awhile and then wander back down to the moat, only to be dragged out again. It really does seem a bit cruel, but we continue to watch, absorbed (and partly hoping one of the Thai guys will get bitten). One of the crocs gets pissed off with all this tail-pulling and nose-swatting and walks down the walkway towards the gate. Luckily the gate is securely shut but when one of the Thai guys heads down the walkway to pull the croc back, it turns and snaps at him. The Thai guy, understandably, leaves the animal to it. It sits there for awhile, defiantly making its point.
The Thai guys then do some showing off by putting their arms, and their heads, into the open jaws of the crocs. Neither of them loses anything. Instead they gain a load of cash as appreciative Thai audience members rain 20 and 100 baht notes on them. Then they both lift up a croc each and turn around to face each side of the stadium, while we all take photos. It’s very much like being at the circus, and as ethically dodgy as that, but nonetheless I can’t help but feel entertained. More entertaining though are the terrified-looking farang and Thai visitors who venture down to the island to have their photo taken next to the disinterested crocs. We don’t bother, both of us feeling we’ve bought into this ethically-unsound venture enough as it is.
Looking for somewhere to have lunch we pass a small stage where monkeys dressed in clothes are doing tricks. It’s all a bit disturbing so we walk on and pass a small area where a sleepy-looking tiger is sat chained to the floor. A sign tells us we can have our photo taken with the tiger. When this happens the people sit behind the tiger which is dragged up by its ‘carer’ into a sitting position and the photo is taken. The tiger looks very much alive and sprightly in the pic, of course, its eyes shining brightly. The reality is much different, however, and if those tigers aren’t drugged up to their eyeballs then I’m the King of Thailand.
After eating some fried rice, we head into the croc farm itself. Jess and I spend ages walking around the platforms above the big lake that seems to hold the main bulk of the farm’s crocodiles. Just when you think you’ve seen the biggest one, another, bigger one will literally rear its ugly head. We’re not sure whether we see the biggest or not – a six metre long fella who goes by the name of Yai (which means ‘big’ – the Thais don’t seem to appreciate irony in their names!). The lake is so thick with green sludge that it is impossible to tell the exact length of any of them. But the hints they give about their length by raising parts of their gnarly bodies above the green water are actually more frightening (and thrilling) than seeing all of them.
Eventually we can resist the ‘feed the crocodiles’ signs no longer and I go and purchase a couple of chicken carcasses from a bored-looking Thai lady. The carcasses smell really unpleasant, not in a gone-off way, just in an abundance of raw meat way. We throw them in and there’s a deluge of frightening snapping sounds that relieve me of the smell of raw meat and thrill me no end. The crocs are frightening-looking things and I can’t help but be impressed and fascinated by them.
After wandering around the huge farm for some time, and taking more than a few photos, we take a look around the rest of the zoo. We come across another stadium where an ‘elephant show’ has just finished. I run up and have a look anyway, and Jess follows. We’re stopped dead in our tracks by the sight of an elephant pushing a scooter along, pedaling away quite unhappily. It can’t get off the thing soon enough, poor bastard, but its Thai ‘carer’ won’t let it off until it’s reached the end of the stadium. Jess is a bit disgusted I take a photo of it, but I’m thinking more in terms of ‘no one will believe me if I don’t’ than ‘wow, that looks really cool’. 
We move on and find a couple of elephants chained to the ground and people feeding them with bananas. Jess is unsure whether to get involved and buy some bananas, but you can tell she really wants to so I urge her on. I don’t bother. I’m a bit scared of elephants. Like, crocs you know to stay away from cos they’ll try and eat you. But elephants are an unknown quantity. They could hurt you - kill you even - without even realising. They’re just so large and cumbersome and unpredictable, it puts me a bit on edge.
We look at the ‘disabled crocs’ enclosure, which is basically crocs that have been taken away from the others and are living on their own because they have some kind of defect (a misshapen snout, no tail, etc) that would ensure a short life around other crocs. Or maybe they thought it’d be good to have a croc freak show, who knows. But that’s a little depressing as well.
More uplifting is the breeding programme enclosure where all the little baby crocs are kept. They are cute as hell and I’d almost want to take one home were it not for the fact they grow to be Very Large and are probably difficult to housetrain.
Having seen about all we could of the crocs (we both love them) we go to look at the rest of the zoo. We pass the tiger area where we see some monks having their pic taken with said animal. Not very Buddhist, I think, and sneak a snap of their indiscretion.
We then stand and watch a bit of the monkey show. It’s horrifying. These poor little monkeys, dressed up in children’s clothes and urged to do (mostly) demeaning tricks. The monkey doing math is quite impressive but the jumping through a burning hoop and pretending to sing into a microphone is a little too much. There’s a moment of poignancy when I see one of the monkeys come backstage (I’m stood by the side) and he sits by a pole and just looks so forlornly at the ground. It’s probably mostly my imagination, of course, but it’s at this point I decide I’ve seen enough. 
Jess is feeling the same and its getting late in the day. Knowing we have an epic and uncomfortable two hour journey ahead of us, we decide its best to go. We decide to stop off at the three-headed elephant if we can, but when we drive past it there’s no bus stop and there doesn’t seem to be any way to get into the temple. It’s obviously not a tourist attraction. It should be though; I really can’t get across to you just how massive it was.
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