The Zoo

I was surprised to discover that after previously spending roughly 8 months in Singapore, my lovely husband had never been to the zoo here. Now, I'm not usually one for zoos as often you walk around the spartan cages and endure the sad-looking animals inside. This zoo however, is widely recognised as one of the best in the world and they use landscaping to separate the animals from us rather than using bars and this creates the illusion that you are up close and personal to the animals. So we remedied the oversight, and went to the zoo!



We choose a lovely day to go and the animals were out in full force. I particularly enjoyed the elephants show where they demonstrated some of the work that they used to do in the logging industry. They obviously liked their trainers (mahout) and joked around with them and the audience throughout the show.

The orangutans were everywhere, swinging on specially constructed vines over walkways where people were - no lack of stimulation in their lives!

The other animals seemed to fare just as well, see for yourself...












Night Safari
We decided to stay on into the evening and go to the night safari, a twin zoo to the main Singapore zoo which opened its doors at 7pm and closed well into the wee hours. The concept of the night safari was that so many animals sleep during the day and come alive at night when they hunt and feed and we never normally get the chance to observe them. So, why not have a zoo with that as the focus. Along with some random human entertainment (see right) we wandered along in the dark and saw large cats fishing in streams, giraffes eating, snow leopards. We were nearly knocked over by a flying fox swooping past, bats (shudder) and many other random animals.

Sadly no pictures though as it was 1. night and 2. no flash photography was allowed. Just a recommendation to go and enjoy it for yourself.

Singapore

Singapore is... well, Singapore really, and we're really happy to be here. Don't be fooled by all the Singaporeans and travel magazines that say that you don't need to spend more than 24 hours in Singapore, it's all a big scam to keep you away so that they can have this island all to themselves. In reality, its a warm, tropical, comfortable paradice with many little adventures to be had. It helps too that we are staying with my lovely cousin and he has been around to point out the good eating places and things to do while we are here.

The tailor
Of course the first thing that Johan wanted to do when we landed was to find his old tailor and get him to whip up some travel shorts for him for Australia. So he jumped into a cab and headed to the old address. When he got there, to his surprise, the tailor was gone. Disappointed we went to another establishment recommended by my cousin and after chatting for a while, discovered that his tailor had got into a fatal accident while driving on a highway in Malaysia. Yikes!

Durian
Neither of us have ever tasted the "King of Fruit" and as we've both had friends who have been trying to get us to taste this fruit for years, we decided that now was the time. For those of you who are wandering what all the fuss is about, you only need to get within a few metres of a durian to understand. To say that this fruit had an unpleasant odour would be an understatement of magnamous proportions. This fruit stinks! It is impossible to fully comprehend the stench of this fruit.

But we were determined not to let that matter stand between us and a potentially wonderful experience, as our durian-loving friends assure us of. Well, I have to report that neither Johan nor I were particularly impressed with it, though my cousin Jochum, whose flat we are camping out in, thought it was quite nice. It tasted of custard with a strong garlic aftertaste - very odd indeed.

Pandan bread
A new favourite, normal bread with flavouring from the pandan leaf which is delicious and for some reason, turns the bread a light green colour. A little disconcerting.

Singapore is warm and friendly and familiar to both of us and a great place to relax for a few days before our next big adventure