So how many animals really are too many?

So, if you’d sat me down a week ago and said Davey me old son, before you’re much older you’ll be spending thirteen and a half hours in a row in a zoo, well frankly I wouldn’t have believed you.  But waddya know, I did.  And on the whole it was fantastic.  Took heaps of photos of course but I’ll only put a few on here.

The day started early (7 am … on holiday!!) with a pickup from the hostel around 8 to take us out to the Singapore Zoo.  Normally I avoid organised tours like the plague, but this was more about the transportation than anything else (the Zoo is quite a way out of the city centre) and cost bugger all more than a ticket by itself.  First on the agenda was breakfast with the orangutans, which of course was a bit of a misnomer … should probably have been called ‘dodgy buffet near the orangutans’ but I guess that wouldn’t have sold so many tickets.  For all my cynicism though, it was pretty awesome to be a foot away from these awesome animals when it came time for photos.

The next few hours passed in a blur of reptiles, monkeys, big cats, sea life, birds, insects and humans.  Lots of humans.  I did sometimes wonder who exactly was on display here, especially given the behaviour of some of the hominids.  Loud and obnoxious just doesn’t start to describe some of them.  Seriously, I’m pretty sure that your vocal cords will still work even if you don’t use them for 5 whole minutes in a row.  Just a thought.

Overall though, the Singapore Zoo does a great job of doing what it does – the animals generally seem well cared for and as happy as they can be (though I’m still not sure about the ostriches that looked half plucked…), and the shows all make a very strong point about conservation and saving animals in the wild.

Despite the heat and sore feet, we decided that we may as well include the night safari in our day’s outing, given that we were there already and all.  The night safari is separate to, although right alongside, the zoo and as the name implies, doesn’t open until it starts to get dark so you can see the nocturnal animals when they are actually up and about doing fun stuff rather than sleeping.  I had heard great things about the night safari but to be honest I enjoyed the day zoo more – though both of us being asleep on our feet by the end of it probably didn’t help.  Still, some of the exhibits were pretty impressive, including being nose to nose with a couple of leopards separated by only an inch of glass.  The bat house was cool as well – not for anybody with a phobia mind you, as fruit bats swooping at your head in the darkness may not be everyone’s idea of a good time!  The firebreathing and ‘tribal show’ from the Borneo tribesmen (who probably just live down the road and have names like Frank and Simon, but anyway) was kinda cool in its way, though such things do usually leave me a bit cold.

Only real piece of advice I’d give to anyone visiting the zoo is to avoid the trams that drive around like the plague – you’d get to see nothing and get wound up by people who won’t shut up and (on the night safari) insist on using flash photography despite being asked repeatedly not to.  We thought we’d try it on the night safari to give the aching feet a rest, but regretted it from the first minute really.

So all in all, a very worthwhile experience and one I’d highly recommend to all.  And I’m now all animal’d out and have no need to see any more, any time soon.  Lucky we’re off to the Kruger national park in South Africa for several days later this week, eh?