Singapore Zoo and Night Safari

Singapore Zoo was the name of the day on Saturday and this I highly recommend if you ever visit Singapore. I'm not normally a fan of visiting zoo's when traveling. How different can they be from country to country? However I had heard the zoo in Singapore was one of the best in the world so I decided to check it out.

I'm glad I did. They had a brilliant array of animals on show from chimpanzees to lions to snakes and, one of my favourites, a cheetah. The design of the zoo is done in such a way that the animals are not necessarily caged in. Moats are built around some of the animals which stops them moving out of their holding. Obviously in the case of some rather high swinging (and dangerous) species, such as the baboons, they are kept behind glass walls. In the primate section, monkeys are completely free roaming so it was not rare to be able to get within touching distance of them. I caught one particular monkey scavenging through a litter bin. He seemed pretty happy with his old can of coffee that he found (photos below).

After a day of wondering around the zoo I decided to visit the Night Safari that was just next door. This opens as the sun sets and you are let loose on the nocturnal animals of the park. You can take a tram which gives a tour of the zoo and you can then do the walking trails which takes you to places that the tram can't reach (such as the bat enclosure - in which one flew, out of nowhere, from the dark, straight over my head, and scared the life out of me!) The animals are lit up by special lights that make the animals visible to the human eye but are not too bright to upset the animals natural nocturnal pattern.