The Night Safari

The Night Safari (separate from the Singapore Zoo) is touted as one of Singapore's best tourist attractions. We had spent all day running around the bird park in the sun, so we were a little tired by the time we reached the night safari and may not have had as good an experience as we would have.

We decided to see the earliest Creatures of the Night show session (there's one every hour on the hour); this involved quite a bit of lining up in a big crowd, but we managed to get seats right down the front (kids are good at finding a way to get their way!). The show was good, but just not as impressive as I'd expected. There were some pretty cool creatures, like the spotted cat who can jump ridiculously high, owls, and a furry bear cat thing that inched its way across the crowd on a suspended rope. There was a bit of play-acting and my six-year-old cousin got to be a volunteer and hide a grape in his hand for one of the little creatures (I think it was a serval?) to smell out and pick.

We then took the tram ride around the zoo (I think park entrance and tram ride is $28). This was well worth it, as you get to see some animals that are hidden or immobile during the day. The white rhinos, hippoes, lions, tigers, panthers and deer were all out in the 'moonlight'. I didn't like the owl exhibit so much - I love owls but I think their cages were way too small. But I don't know how you can tell if an owl is happy or not.

There are a few walks you can do - we did part of the leopard trail, then the mangrove walk where you come up close to bats feeding on fruit - that was quite cool. Everyone was buggered by then so we decided to leave. There's a bus you can catch that goes straight to Orchard Rd (for tourists, obviously!) for $4 which was much more appealing than a 1-hour bus/MRT ride.

You will love this!!!  This is the only nocternal zoo in the world, and it's in the rainforest.  There is a good way to get a tour to do it; we did this and were glad we did. The company is called Viator; we were very happy.  (That's the link to them).  What we did, was pay for the one where you get the little dinner there as well; and suprisingly, it was wonderful for many reasons; the food was actually very nice, but moreover, it gave you a chance to get to know the other people who had taken the tour, and they were from all over the world.  We loved, loved, loved this!!  A few things to note:

1.  You leave at about 10:00 to go back to the city - so either don't sit at dinner too long, or splurge and pay for a taxi back to town (they aren't much) so you can stay a lot longer and really soak it in.

2..  Don't panic at the little crap van that picks you up at your hotel (I have to admit, we did a little bit).  This just takes you to the main pick up point down town, not far at all; then you get on a LOVELY bus, great AC, just fantastic.  You're on that for the rest of the night and never see the little shuttle van again. 

You'll never forget this experience!