Singapore Diaries - Day 5

We woke up early as usual, took a small walk around the Joo Chiat area where we stayed. We visited the nearby shopping mall to see if we can get some electronic gadgets for lesser price.We did not find anything interesting but just strolled around and left. We were heading towards the Zoo. When we were making the plan, we were thinking “Should really visit the zoo?”

Nevertheless, since it was one of the highly recommended tourist place, we included it in the plan.We took a bus till the zoo (we had to change 2 buses). We started late on purpose because we were planning for the Night Safari on the same day. In Singapore, combo deals are a great way to save on ticket prices. We had purchased a combo ticket for the Zoo, Night Safari and Bird park at a steal deal we got online! After all, who doesn’t love discounts ? :)

At the entrance of the Zoo they we were given a map which showed the exact directions to navigate every area of the zoo. It also had the list of amphitheatre show timings.

Best thing I loved about this place was that the animals were let in open areas more than closed cages. Exceptions being some animals which need cooler temperatures or the ones which are really dangerous. This zoo has over 3000 animals with over 300 species of mammals, birds and reptiles. I would certainly like to give u all a tip here, take the tram and take a trip through the entire zoo. It will help you understand what all the zoo has to offer and accordingly you can plan on where you would want to spend more time. They also have a animal feeding programme where you get to feed different animals for ur experience. It is all mentioned in the map they give you. Few feeding sessions have fees charged while some are free of cost.

The zoo was well spread across 26 hectares of land and everything was super clean. We were glad we could see the animals from different parts of the world at one place. The closing timevbeing 6:00 pm, we had to leave. Night Safari entrance is right opposite of the Zoo. So we were in Night Safari within no time.

We had an early dinner and waited for the opening time of 7.30 pm. Sharp at 7.30 pm it started with a tribal dance. Men were dressed as tribals who welcomed us with the Thumbuakar dance performance while some were flamethrowing with their mouths and displaying some unique skills. Quite a show it was !

As we entered the Night Safari, we were a bit confused where to start from. In the zoo earlier this morning we had walked all the way with zero effort. Now since the sun had already set and the area was all dark, it seemed a bit scary to walk around. We saw most of the people were lining up for the tram ride and we also decide to take one. The tram moved slowly and stopped at the first station. All the people were seated, no intentions to get down. I was pretty excited to get down and explore. We waited for quite sometime and the driver moved ahead.I requested him to stop and quickly hopped out of the tram. No idea what to do next, but pretty excited to explore the unknown. To my surprise so many others got down and started following us :-P Literally like waiting for someone to take the lead.. I never miss a chance like this ;) his gave me a push to go and explore. There were a lot of guards moving around asking us to follow the trail.

Our eyes took some time to get adjusted to the surroundings around. Then we spotted some signage on the way which guided us to explore around. It is so very difficult to take pictures in the pitch darkness. Almost all the animals were awake and active. It houses 900 animals across different species from different parts of the world. I had never seen animals left like this in their comfort zone roaming freely, like they were in their actual habitat.

I would like to quote one more amazing experience here, the Mangrove walk. Initially when we started walking we saw nothing but a few trees. We needed to enter from gate1 and exit from gate2, the walkway shaped like a horse shoe. As we walked in, I was having this conversation “What is this place? I am not able to see anything here.. and why are people even scared to walk here in the dark". Just then I turn to my left and see a huge bat hanging upside down right in front of my eyes. Literally around 2ft wide, a fruit bat was looking at me with a cold stare. I was shocked and wanted to scream, but too scared to scream too. Quickly hurrying out of this bat chamber, we went ahead and saw some deers, tigers, etc..

We took the tram to next stop and again walked along. This entire experience will take atleast 3 hours to cover the entire Night Safari. Since it was quite late, we ditched the trusty public transport and took a taxi back to the hotel. Another exciting day had come to an end.