Before arriving in Pattaya, at home in a relaxed atmosphere, we made a schedule and planned several excursions. The first of these was the tropical garden Nong Nooch.
This park is considered the largest in this region of the planet. And it was named after its founder Madame Nong Nooch, who, after traveling through Europe, became interested in landscape design and after the return home, she decided to organize landscaped garden with tropical gardens, plants, flower beds, benches, waterfalls... And she succeeded, despite the fact that the park was created for several decades, and it was opened to the public only in the early 80s.
The garden is huge and occupies 242 hectares and, of course, it cannot be bypassed in one visit. Our excursion program began at 12 o'clock and was called "Evening Nong Nooch". Yes, of course there is a minus, a significant minus, that you will have to look around the garden in the biggest heat. But we wanted to take exactly this trip to Nong Nooch, since this excursion also included dinner at the Pattaya Tower Park.
By minibus, our group drove to a tropical garden by a Thai driver, accompanied by a guide. From our beach Jomtien the road took about 30 minutes. While our guide was buying entrance tickets, it was possible to look around, and there was something to look at. Dinosaur figurines stood on the square and could be photographed with them.
Then we go to the park and guide takes us to the car garden-garage, where you can see quite interesting cars of the current owner of the tropical park, namely, the son of Madame Nong Nooch. We leave from garages and meet elephants who carry people. The little baby elephant is charming, everyone immediately began to stroke it. Then our path lay on a butterfly hill. At the top of the hill there are animal figures: tigers, lions, baboons, donkeys.
The territory of the park is divided into zones that connect bridges, paths or beautiful trails. Everything around is clean, well maintained. Everything pleases the eye. Passing through the next bridge, you can admire all the beauty from above. There is a lot of greenery; the landscape park is tasteful; you walk and understand how much work has been invested in this garden.
Throughout the park, there are a lot of figures of animals and birds, and these are not one or two species, but entire families or flocks of sculptural animals: camels, kangaroos, sheep, pandas, owls, sheep, bears, giraffes, snails ...
After visiting France, Mrs. Nong Nooch decided to create her Versailles Garden, with copies of Buddhist sculptures, complemented by Thai temples, sculptures, fountains and ponds.
The valley of dinosaurs - something that will appeal to children, and adults, of course, too. Especially when you walk past some specimens, and they make sounds. On a large rock "sit" a lot of dinosaurs of different species. They are made in full growth, you can approach and touch the closest ones.
Our tour included two shows, this is an elephant show and a national ethnographic show; the latter was held in a cozy auditorium with air conditioning, a great opportunity to cool down a bit. The show consists in familiarizing the audience with the history, culture and customs of Thailand.
It was a vivid performance with music.
Further our way lay in the orchid garden; on the way went to arapayme. For those who do not know, this is the name of a fish, the length of which is on average 2 meters, but there are individuals even large. And you can feed them.
Garden of pots- very unusual place of the park. Here the designers tried and made all kinds of shapes from ordinary clay pots (elephants, hearts, arches, cars, etc. ...). Of course everything is beautiful, every corner here is worthy of attention.
Well, our tour was coming to an end. Our minibus was waiting for us at the VIP parking. Time passed very quickly, in spite of the heat, it was interesting and informative to walk in the tropical garden.