Walking with Nemo
‘JJ’ Jeremy Johanson
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Imagine staring, eye-to-eye, with those magnificent sea creatures that you only see in the movies! Siam Ocean World lets you ‘walk with the animals’ and get intimate with their daily lives.
Entering the main street-level entrance of Siam Paragon there is a constant stream of traffic on the escalator, going down, leading to the underground lobby of Siam Ocean World and the watery realm of its 30,000 inhabitants from over 400 species. 
The pervading calm starts at the welcome area, where the service team effortlessly glides you through the entrance, a vision of dancing seahorses, and your arrival at the first of 7 zones, featuring ‘Weird and Wonderful’ unique aquatic animals that are far more than fish.
You are immediately greeted by fascinating yellow and black striped Garden Eels that look like creatures in an underwater habitat on a planet in a foreign galaxy, as their long pencil-thin bodies retreat in and out of the sand in a flash, with a dozen other marvelous specimens captivating your attention, including adorable seahorses who are all lovingly paired up 2-by-2, entwined at their tails reminiscent of adolescents walking hand-in-hand.
We then arrived at the first major aquarium. It was the ‘Deep Reef’ zone, where a diver was surrounded by an amazing array of corals and tropical reef-dwelling fish, swimming alone or in schools, at a depth of 5 meters. ‘Diver Comm’s’ presentation was going on where everyone gets a chance to ask the diver questions, or line-up at the glass wall to wave as he swims by.
Next up is the ‘Living Ocean’ zone showcasing dozens of different animal groups and how they each have developed very distinctive survival methods enabling them to find food and oxygen, protect themselves, find a mate, and reproduce. From Eels to Butterfly Fish and Angelfish, they all possess surprising physical, functional and behavioral features that are a sight to behold.
The entire visit is guided by educational postings and talks. Ever wonder how Catfish can swim in schools and always stay together? A sign tells us that; “They have an organ called a ‘lateral line’. This fluid filled tube runs down the length of their body and detects changes in water pressure and movement, alerting them to the changes in the direction of their school”. This textual explanation was informative, but seeing is believing as you actually watch the harmoniously grouped fish in motion. When the frontrunner changes direction, the whole mass follows without ever leaving any stragglers behind.
We then move on to a case full of glowing creatures in the dark, reminiscent of an ‘Alien’ movie. Upon investigation, we discover that they are sharks eggs lit-up from behind. You can marvel at the gestation of life as the shark fetuses wriggle beneath their translucent shell.
Our journey downwards continues with tropical sights and sounds beckoning us to enter the ‘Rainforest’, and a transition from a seawater to a freshwater environment. Passing the glittering procession of Silver Fish, we need to be reminded that they are vegetarian since they are nearly indistinguishable from Piranha’s. We then meet up with Siamese Tiger Fish whose number of stripes serve as a passport to their geographical origins, only to be met around the bend by a beautiful Burmese Python awaiting shoulders that wanted to be photographed with him, (or her?).
Freshwater Archer Fish, Clown Knife Fish, African Lung Fish, Spotted Scat Fish and Stingrays line the way with Barramundi, Australian Lung Fish, Saratoga and Tarpons, as you move down the slope heading to the ‘Rocky Shore’ zone and an array of animals that live half in / half out of the water. When you put your hand on the Sea Star, you can feel the soft tenderness to its hard shell, similar to putting your hand on somebody’s skull, actually feeling the life that exists under its walls.
Then a turn to your left produces the most surprising spectacle. Spotted seals are hogging the show, swimming and playing with the bystanders, looking like they are having the best time of their lives! As they twist and turn, and speed along clapping all the way, they actually peer through the glass to play with the children who line up waving and enjoying their newfound friends, only occasionally coming up for a breath of air. But their graciousness in the water is overcome by gravity as they lumber up on to the rocks.
The time has arrived to enter the ‘Open Ocean’ underwater tunnel, where sharks, stingrays and other schools of fish fly above your head, leading towards an aquatic underwater paradise, the 360° Fishbowl. You’re now in underwater heaven where the calmness of the sea has made you totally unaware that only moments ago you where in the hustle and bustle of a noisy metropolis. Surrounded by aquatic friends, it’s amazing when some of them come up to the glass and seem to want to talk with you. Then, all of the sudden a school of about a hundred fish that were calmly napping amongst the bottom terrain simultaneously jump up and dart away together in the opposite direction.
We follow them through another tunnel, into a small amphi-theatre, as we are now moving in the world of fish, rather than fish having been transplanted in the world of man. When out of the blue arrive 2 divers from the right. We are not quite sure if they are here to feed, or to clean. In any case, they wave very happily at the hundred or so spectators there to greet them. It’s here that many of the species that we saw in the small tanks all along the way are floating around, together, either individually or in tightly-packed schools. The divers quickly return with a box, because, it’s feeding time! All of the fish come to get some, except one sly Stingray who crept out from behind the rocks and tried to open another box of fish food by himself. Finally the real star of the show arrives, the shark, and the divers feed him by hand.
The last stop is the Sea Jelly room, where we watch hundreds of white, azure blue and brown invertebrate creatures swimming and floating in a vertical tank. They are Lagoon Jellies. As one little girl shouted out; “Daddy, they’re just like mushrooms!”, but they give an impression of a world of total freedom.
For those who want to complete the experience, they can take the Glass Bottom Boat ride and float above the main aquarium, 6 meters deep, with a personal guide. Our guide, Khun Asma, explained all that went on ‘behind the scenes’, and all about the 14 sharks imported from Australia, including the largest Gray Nurse Shark named ‘Big Mama’, since they all hope that she would breed a baby shark in the next year or 2.
One thing is for sure though, Siam Ocean World is so amazing that you can actually take a Bangkok getaway and spend the day here, because for those who never get to dive, this is the next best thing to being there.
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