Night Safari

The massive crowd waiting to get into the
animal show. Fortunately we were in front!
The one thing we knew, without a doubt, that we would do in Singapore was go to the Night Safari. But even though we bought tickets on our third day in town, it took us another three days (and one false start) to finally get there.

There are three main parts to the Night Safari: an animal show, walking paths, and a tram ride that travels beyond the walking paths. We hoped to get in all three. We were able to do the show and the tram ride but, because we had to make sure we made the last train home, we were able to do only a small part of the walking trails.

In general, the safari was very cool. The animal enclosures are unique in that many of them use natural barriers. I suppose this is to try to create more of a 'safari' experience for visitors. Unfortunately, it's hard to feel like you're encountering an animal in the wild when you're surrounded by the 'wilds' of civilization. There were so many people! It was so crowded, we had to get to the show area really early in order to get a decent seat, and then we had to wait in a long queue for the the tram. Not to say that the experience was terrible. The animal show was well done, and the main presenter was quite a showman. The tram ride, however, was just okay. It was difficult to hear the guide with so many people on board ignoring her and just talking amongst themselves. Also, they never really paused at any of the displays. So you didn't really have much time to see each enclosure. The guide, though, was quite funny. Obviously trying to push conservation, she would say things like, "It takes the coats of three lions to make a coat for one selfish individual to wear. Does that seem fair?" And, "It takes the coats of three tigers to make a coat for one selfish individual to wear. Does that seem fair?" And, "Their tusks are used to make chess pieces and ashtrays ... I don't think that seems fair, do you?" You get the idea. But, overall, I am glad we went. I've wanted to go to the Night Safari since reading about it during my layover in Singapore in 2000. It's just unfortunate that we had to share it with so many others.

For more photos, see our Singapore photo album.