Singapore Zoo and Night Safari

I have spent most of today in my Safari suit wandering around the animals at Singapore zoo. This zoo is very impressive indeed, easily the best zoo that i have ever visited by some distance. At the very outset, i knew that i was going to be in for a treat when i went to the large sign showing a map of the zoo, only to see a primate wander over the top of it and sit in the branch right next to me.
Whose a cheeky monkey?! this is par for the course in the zoo, lots of animals roaming around and swinging right over your heads.

From this point on, i walked miles around the zoo, which seemed to have a maze like quality about it, and walking down a little side alley seemingly opened up a whole range of other animals for you to look at.

I have to admit though that i felt slightly sorry for the polar bear; they are used to sub-zero temperatures in the Arctic, and yet have been forced to languish in 30 degree heat all year round with only a medium sized pool of tepid water to jump into.


That said though, the majority of enclosures were amazingly spacious for the animals, and the way the zoo has been designed means that there are no cages for the animals - they are kept at bay from the food sources (i.e. the visitors) by a series of electric wires and ditches. This really allows you to get incredibly close to the animals, in particular the Indian elephant, who was bathing in the water. She was so close, that if i reached out, i could have patted her trunk.

After all that i headed home to freshen up and prepare myself for the night safari. Basically, there were lots of sealed off areas of the zoo during the day which are then opened up at night. This allows the visitors to see the animals in their more favoured medium. Some of the animals we saw were the same as during the day, but to add some extra fun to the proceedings the trams actually go through some of the enclosures (obviously not through the lion enclosure, which would have been carnage!), and i literally brushed past a tapir on this trek.

I really enjoyed the bats enclosure, as there was one cheeky chappy right in front of my face nibbling a bit of melon. The only shame of the whole experience though was that it was so dark my camera could not get a good focus on the animals. The most impressive exhibit had to be the jaguar, who was sitting on one side of the glass looking out, and i was on the other side looking in.

I was told on the tour that there is also a nice Bird zoo on the island, so i might pop and see that tomorrow.