Night Safari

The highlight of today was definitely the Night Safari. This part of Singapore Zoo only opens at 7.30pm and consists of a number of illuminated enclosures with a variety of animals from Anteaters to Zebra. The fact that it's dark allows the designers to use the lights to focus visitors eyes and create an illusion of the animals just roaming about freely, whereas they're actually surrounded by thin wire fences. I have to admit I was a little cynical about it to begin with and as we set off on the 'tram' around the park, was searching for the ropes tethering the animals in place. Also, I believe it's true that most animals aren't too bothered about lights, but hate too much noise and the park is very noisy. However, on walking around on our own later, we were able to look more closely and observe that it is not just well presented, but actually appears that the animals have a reasonable amount of space and the reason you actually see so many is that there are lots of them. An despite knowing there's no danger, watching lions roaring a just 100 feet away seemingly with nothing in between you is quite exciting.

My favorites were the tiger, who came rushing down to the one-way window at one point as if it had seen someone; and the fruit bats, with whom you were in touching distance of their little furry up-side-down faces as you walked through their pen. No photos though - it was dark remember.

Though it was all very safe, though I was slightly concerned that opposite the Gariel (endangered fish eating crocodiles from Nepal and India with a distinctive thin snout) there was a short crocodile with huge jaws. This enclosure didn't have a sign and when I got close to look one of them quite aggressively moved towards the fence, unlike the shy gariels. I was convinced these were 'marsh muggers' a species with a CV of regular man-eating. and when I asked one of the guides what they were he came up with some convoluted explanation that they didn't have a sign because they were checking the actual name before they put the sign up. Hmmn.

We also had a huge buffet dinner and I quite shamefully tucked into 6 courses including the fruit salad and ice cream/cake courses. This after the massive breakfast I had had to lay to rest all the memories of recent regular breakfast disappointments (you don't want fried eggs on toast really, you want an omelette and a stale stick of bread, Sir.)