Today I had the privilege of visiting three animal parks in Singapore.
To get to the zoos from Chinatown I had to catch the MRT to Ang Mo Kio town, then transfer to the 138 bus which takes you to the zoo. It was pretty easy, but took about one hour each way. I did the exact same thing in reverse on the way home.
After spending several weeks emailing Singapore Zoos trying to find out how to book for the jungle breakfast (better known as breakfast with the orang-utans), all my emails bounced back. I have been unable to call the zoo since arriving in Singapore, as I refuse to buy a very expensive sim card for my phone just for three days here. So I decided to just walk up to the zoo this morning and see if I could get in.
And thankfully I was very fortunate. $29 SGD later I was enjoying a buffet breakfast, commentary from the various animal keepers for the animals who attended our breakfast, and I had my photo taken withorang-utans who were less than 4 inches from my back. We were obviously not to touch them, but they were allowed to touch us and at one point I did feel a tap of an orang-utan hand on my shoulder. Awwwww!!!! The breakfast itself was pretty ordinarily, of a similar standard to what I would expect in this part of Asia. But at the end of the day, who gives a toss because I had breakfast with orang-utans!
After breakfast I rode the zoo tram around the whole trip one time just to get my bearings and to figure out what animals I wanted to see. It turned out to be pretty much all of them, the enclosures here are fantastic - you are literally just feet away from animals. There are, of course, electric fences in place to keep the animals and humans apart, but they are very discreet.
The absolute highlights of the Zoo visit for me was the orang-utans, followed by the elephant ride. It was pretty expensive at $8 for about a five minute walk around a very short circuit, but for the novelty factor it was awesome. At least I could go home now safe in the knowledge that these elephants are not being mistreated, as they are in other parts of Asia where similar activities are offered.
There are lots of things to see and do at the Singapore Zoo. I bought a park hopper ticket, which gave me three parks for $69 Including unlimited rides on the zoo tram. You get lots of animals, a lot of space to walk around, lots of shade, places to sit down and a variety of food outlets. It is definitely the best Zoo that I have visited and was well worth the six years wait!
After a quick lunch at one of the food outlets, it was off to the River Safari. This park has only opened recently and very disappointingly the whole of the Amazon section was closed. It would have been nice if they could have mentioned this on the website, considering the amount of money paid for tickets. Apparently tickets are discounted by $10 to make up for this, but apart from a few fish, beavers and some manatees there is only the giant Pandas to look at in this park.
Personally I think it is a complete waste of time and money to visit this park before they sort out opening the Amazon section. Don't get me wrong, the Pandas are fantastic and I did really enjoy watching them, but seriously, why open a park if it is only half available for the public to visit? Get your shizzle together!
By this stage in the day it was only about 2:30 PM and I had almost five hours until the Night Safari park opened. I decided to catch the bus back to Ang Mo Kio town and visit the mall next to the bus station. There wasn't much there, so I spent most of my time using the free Wi-Fi to upload some photos on Facebook and check my emails. I took the bus back to the zoo, arriving just before 6 PM. I figured it would be good to have dinner and watch the fire show before the Night Safari officially opened. The fire show was entertaining, but to be quite frank I saw a much better one in Borneo three
years ago. The food at the Night Safari is totally overpriced and is pretty crap too. I would suggest you eat before you arrive.
The Night Safari itself is fantastic. I elected to let the maddening hordes of people ride the trams first,
while I walked the three walking trials. I do have to say that the golden leopards completely freaked me
out, they keept jumping at the glass and the enclosure netting and it was very freaky in the dark. After walking the three trails (naturally I avoided all bats and flying squirrels, stuff them for a joke!), I jumped on the tram and did the circuit.
This morning I got talking to a lady from outback Queensland while we were in the queue waiting for our photos to be taken messy orangutans. She told me they had done the night Safari the previous
evening, and had the most hysterical guy in the train doing the commentary. The second I got on my tram and the commentary guy started talking, I knew it was him. Imagine Borat talking in a high-pitched yappy Singlish accent, with a twist of Richard Simmons thrown in for entertainment value. Priceless!
After the tram ride it was time for the creatures of the night show. This was highly entertaining, it featured otters recycling. Yes, you read correctly. Three or four otters came out and have obviously been very highly trained as they were able to recycle aluminium cans, plastic bottles, and paper cups. It was totally cute.
At one stage they allegedly had a lost animal - it was "on the loose" (Maggie, some sort of snake, I
believe she may have been a python). They then "found" Maggie and asked for a Macho man from the audience to come up and help them. They dragged some poor Japanese man up on stage, put the python around his shoulders, made him pose and then switched off the lights and ran away for a couple of minutes. It was absolutely hysterical, the guy was absolutely crapping himself.
The show ended, and I had done what I had come to do, so it was time to catch the bus and train back to the hotel.
It is hard to accurately describe the awesome experience that is the night Safari. If you are in Singapore
you absolutely must do it.
Back to Malaysia tomorrow, so time to go and pack!
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