It was 7:00 pm. Time to go to the Singapore Zoo, where the Night Safari happens… Guruji had specifically asked us to go there, and we were not going to miss it!

Ashokji was our friend and guide for the evening, he came along with his two adorable daughters… he is one of those boisterous people who know everyone and for whom making friends and contacts is utterly effortless…

We drove to the Zoo, which is an absolutely HUGE place, almost 70 Acres, all of it carefully landscaped into habitats that all the animals there are originally from… so you would have the landscape of the Savannas, the Himalayan forests, the rain forests, etc right next to each other… all having the animals from those locales, and all without cages!

They have a day attraction and even a breakfast with the monkeys and the birds, but we had no time for that in this trip… We were there for the Night Safari!

There were some nice knick knack shops and small restaurants scattered around a biggish area with a stage for performances in the middle… The Fire eaters do some scary, unbelievable stuff with well… fire, accompanied by loud music and top notch vigorous dancing to an enchanted audience!

It’s a very hot show!

Ashokji let us watch the show for about 20 minutes or so and then quickly hustled us to the place where the Safari started… On the way we met up with the worlds biggest cockroaches! They were almost 3-4 inches long and the lady who was lovingly handling them told us that they are the worlds best crawlers and if swallowed whole (i have no idea how and who would do that… but you know how the chinese are!), they can crawl out of your stomach, up thru your gullet and out of your mouth!

With that amazing fact in our minds, we boarded the trams (golf cart type buggies joined together, open on both sides but with a roof) and moved into the jungle… No flash photography was allowed, the night animals have very sensitive eyes, so we didnt bother taking any photos

We moved from one landscaped area to the next… seeing animals in dim unobtrusive lighting, going about their business, utterly unperturbed by our presence… some almost close enough to touch… no one even attempted it We had been warned many times by the guide that the animals were not tamed and to keep all hands and feet we wanted to have still attached on our bodies when the safari ended safely inside the buggies

We saw deer, various types of birds, a beautiful white tiger, some huge and completely fast asleep lions, a herd of elephants, rhinos, crocs, some jungle cats, hyenas… There are 315 types of animals here, and more than 2300 of them, more than 15% endangered, some of which only 15-20 still left on our planet, and some very near  cousins of the species there sadly had already become extinct… Such majesty and Grandeur of nature carefully preserved… If people don’t stop eating meat, in a few years, “wild” animals may be seen only in places like these… Vast amounts of jungles are even now mercilessly being chopped down to create space and food for livestock that greedy human beings want to eat… We loose perhaps an acre of forest land every few minutes…

At the half way point, you could get off and walk the jungle trails to see some of the animals closer, we did just that and were rewarded to see the worlds tiniest deer which are smaller than a mouse and the world’s biggest rodents which were as big as small dogs! We also got to see possums and other smaller creatures playing away the night… and there were these beautiful flying squirrels, which didn’t oblige us and fly for us, but we could see and imagine how wonderful they would look… and fresh, fresh jungle air to breathe!

The entire Safari was about 2 hours long, along with the walks and dinesh and i enjoyed every second of it! Then when we were back at the station, and there at the same place that the fire eaters had performed earlier, you could get really up close and personal with a (not very tame) wild cat, a beautiful snake and a really pretty white night owl right out of Harry Potter!

We were allowed to pet the snake and she was so beautiful and warm and sleek and silky to touch… dinesh had a photos of his taken when he was like a few centimetres away from the snakes mouth… she eyeing him intently and sticking out her tongue at him every few seconds, but there was nothing baleful or malignant about this snakes eyes… it seemed she was at peace with everyone (probably had had a meal of a rat or 2 before going on stage!:)).

The other 2 animals were not quite as forthcoming as the snake and we carefully posed with them and had our pics taken :), the cat was clearly tired of her time on stage and hissed and arched her back magnificently and quite menacingly when her time for being on “show” was over…

After that we went to the fish spa… but thats a story for tomorrow!

Jai Gurudeva!

love

bawa

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Tags: night safari, Singapore

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 28th, 2008 at 10:30 am and is filed under Travel. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.