Dusit Zoo – Bangkok Zoo – The Two Headed Turtle and Fishing for Sharks

Last Updated 15/02/2022.

I’ve mentioned Dusit zoo before as a great place to take children in Bangkok, we went for a return visit yesterday. There are many cool things to do in Bangkok with kids and Dusit Zoo is not one we particularly recommend or not recommend. There is a zoo in Bangkok, it is called Dusit Zoo. This is our review.

Dusit Zoo

Admission

One of the good things about the zoo is that it’s not purely a tourist attraction. It’s mostly there for the locals and we only saw one or two other western families there yesterday. Foreigners still had to pay extra, but it was only 100 Baht for adults, about $4. Compare that with Bangkok’s aquarium, that will set you back around $100 for family admission.

The aquarium is far more modern than the zoo. Another animal attraction in Bangkok that is family-friendly is the snake show held at the hospital. This is where they produce anti-venoms from Thailand’s native snakes, it’s a highly educational place to take your children.

Chiang Mai Zoo is a much bigger zoo than Bangkok Zoo, and we enjoyed our day at this zoo too, it’s on the outskirts on Chiang Mai, a car ride away. Dusit Zoo is in fairly central Bangkok, near the New Palace.

Conditions

The animals’ enclosures and conditions aren’t too bad, as zoos go, and the reptile house is fabulous, they have a huge collection. I’m a zoologist by training, my love of animals, and of the science, comes from visiting zoos and aquaria as a child, I don’t have a problem with zoos on the whole, I realise some people do.

Two slightly out-of-the-ordinary, if not totally bizarre, attractions to share with you today, the two headed turtle and fishing for sharks.

The Two Headed Turtle

The turtle sat in his tank outside the tiny aquarium, we saw him two years ago, he’s grown a lot. I doubt there is any way he’d survive in the wild, you can see that the two front legs are independently controlled, the two heads don’t think as one, they eat and come up for air separately.

Fishing for Sharks

For an extra 10 Baht you can rent a fishing rod with a piece of fish tied to the line, no hook, no sharks are hurt. You can literally fish for sharks, baby ones, loads of them.

The kids loved it, we had a chat about whether or not it was a nice thing to do and decided the sharks were better off in the zoo than in a bowl of shark fin soup (I hate to think what happens to them when they get bigger), so I let them try.

We didn’t see any elephants this time, there seems to be some new elephant show at Dusit Zoo in the evenings, I really don’t like that sort of thing so we stayed away. You can still bottle feed the fish and the wild monitor lizards in the lake were amazing, huge things! There is plenty of room for the kids to run around and a great little playground, so if you’re in Bangkok with children and get templed-out, give Dusit Zoo a go.