DIVE HAPPY

You can meet the ocean's biggest predators face to face in the heart of Thailand's capital by swimming with the sharks in the new Siam Paragon aquarium

UnderwaterTimes.com runs a feature on the newly opened "Swimming With Sharks" attraction at the aquarium in Bangkok's Siam Paragon shoppping mall. Siam Paragon is the Thai capital's newest and most palatial mall yet, full of designer goods and luxury items, and its three million litre aquarium is reputed to be the biggest in South East Asia.

Scuba diving at Siam Ocean World is better than the real thing in terms of the variety of species one can see within a single 30-minute dive. “I’ve been diving all over for twenty years, but many of these animals I had never seen before,” notes Rob Mort, who works in the aquarium’s curatorial department. Shark species in the tank include leopard sharks, tawny nurse sharks, bamboo sharks and ragged-tooth sharks imported from Africa. None of these sharks will attack people unless seriously provoked, but once in the water, that knowledge does not necessarily protect you from the primal fear of big, pointy teeth. The ragged-tooth sharks stare at you with their small yellow eyes and show you their mouth full of needle-like teeth, but they only go for prey that they can eat whole since, fortunately, their teeth are not shaped for sawing. Quite harmless to divers, the tawny nurse shark is so large that it can be frightening to approach. It’s three meters long, the largest animal at Siam Ocean World.

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