Botanical Gardens

Penang Botanical Gardens: Forest trail

A short bus ride out of Penang, where terra-cotta roof tiles continue to fire in perpendicular sun, the Penang Botanical Gardens offer a break from urban noise and heat as they have done for 150 years.

Cut into the island’s hills by a small river, this v-shaped valley was dedicated to plant science by British Victorians in the mid 19th century. Fifty odd years after Joseph Banks fathered exploratory botany, British colonial botanists, inspired by curiosity as well as profit, invested in tropical botanical gardens in the Malay Straights – this is the third after Singapore and Melucca.

This is a Kew hothouse minus the glass… and there are some additions.

Mynah birds flit around, investigating waste bins, cruising cafe terasses and staking out picnics. There seem to be no starlings; this einstein-bright tropical mimic fills the same niche.

In the lofty understory of the surrounding rainforest, bright yellow orioles call. Like the European relative, the Black-naped Oriole sounds like a child experimenting with a christmas whistle. The flutey timbre echos through the tropical canopy…

Butterflies bigger than small birds settle on mosses that grow on the small waterfalls.

A large turtle suns himself on a boulder in the river.

… and at any point in the park visitors may see the long-tailed macaques, large grey and rather elegant monkeys roaming in a family troop.

Long Tailed Macaques at Penang Botanics

We watched them from the shade of an Indian cafe near the park entrance. A mother had her infant pinned to the grass with a black leathery foot. With the baby spreadeagled and with a look of blissful resignation, his mother was riffling slowly backwards through his fur with her right hand as one might thumb the pages of a book, while with the left she was picking out specks and popping them into her mouth. The look of close concentration on her face I have seen on humans as they focus on a computer game or a mobile phone.

Kew with extras.

Snakes and Silk

At Bangkok’s snake farm, visitors learn about the diversity of snake species in the country. The farm is associated with the adjoining hospital which treats snake bites and cases of rabies.

Britain has 4 species of snake of which one has a poisonous bite. Thailand has 150 species of which 20 have a toxic payload. Intended primarily to incapacitate its prey (sometimes suprisingly large) as well as for defence and deterrent, snake venoms vary with species. Some attack the blood, and stop the prey by preventing oxygen from getting to muscles and brain. Others prevent the nervous system from functioning, leading initially to paralysis, making the meal easier and then to respiratory failure. Myotoxins disable muscles, cardiotoxins the heart.

There are up to 9,000 snake envenomation cases in Thailand per year and 94 deaths in a bad one. Thai population levels are similar to the uk.

So this hospital is kept busy and the attached farm and visitor centre seem to have a twofold purpose: incidence reduction through education, and treatment through the development of antivenoms.

It seems that by treating a horse or a sheep with non fatal levels of a snake’s venom, the animal’s metabolism naturally develops a defence. The principal seems to be similar to vaccination, though no doubt this is complicated biology. Blood is drawn from the treated ungulate and the serum extracted for use as medicine.

So Bangkok’s snake farm creates a stock of antivenom for each of the country’s 20 nastiest serpants; great news for the 24 people a day who are going to call on its services. If ever public funds were well spent, it is here.

This is not a game. King Cobras (powerfully neurotoxic, and the world’s longest venemous snake reported over 5 meters long) are common within the bounds of Bangkok itself – so cheek by fang with 6.3 million people.

It is not hard to imagine conscientious and doting Thai parents making sure they bring their little ones here to the “snake zoo”. Outside of swimming pools, rarely is fun so well combined with

Tight handling: aggressive Thai snake held by expert keeper.

useful education and sensible risk managment. Plenty of snakes on view, many showed off live (in thai and english) to a cautious and somewhat reticent audience, many 5-year-olds amongst them (“who would like to come down and touch this beautiful animal? …. What noone?”)

Entrance fee is derisory and pointlessly tiny. Go there and support this excellent institution – superb.

A little way across town is Jim Thompson’s “House on the Krong”. Across the canal from a muslim neighbourhood, Jim Thompson, American WWII soldier, secret agent and entrepreneur set up his centre for the revival of the Thai silk industry after the war ended. He’d been active in the expulsion of the Japanese from the country, and stayed on there after hostilities ceased.

Carp Pond, Jim Thompson’s house

On his inspiration and request, his neighbours across the canal began to produce world class quality cloth including the naturally coloured “Golden Thai Silk” not available anywhere else. As mastermind and part-owner of a prosperous export company Jim became a man of means and spent some of his cash transporting some typical wooden thai village houses to his plot in central Bangkok. In the city’s bustling midst he created a small Buddhist-inspired haven, with carp and turtle ponds and a curiously diverse collection of chinese and buddhist ceramics.

The jewel is definitely in the lotus in this delightful museum.