Backpacking in Singapore: Night Safari
The zoo was a bit of a trek from the hostel and city centre. You couldn’t walk it. The best way to get there is get the underground (MRT) to Ang Mo Kio station on the red line. Get out there and there is a large Bus Interchange. The very last and final booth of the bus interchange, terminal 1 has Bus 138. That is the “ZOO BUS.” We boarded the bus at around 6 pm, the Night Safari begins at 7 pm, but all the places there are open all day (at the main Singapore Zoo) and there is some kind of promotion to be had if you do the Day Zoo and Night Safari. At any rate, a Zoo is a Zoo. Seen one, seen them all (the cynical side of me…). But NIght Safari is special. It is something new and exciting to try. It was a first for me and Natalja. From Mandai Lake Road, a lit up sign for Night Safari looked every bit as exciting as seeing animals not behind bars could be.
I was always aware of Singapore Zoo, but not the Night Safari. That was until we met Ricky from Bangor (in Tainan, Taiwan) and he recommended the Night Safari. An old work mate from my time working at the dreadful “Red Uneventful Cuisine” company was a Singaporean. Her name is Mya Than Da and we worked together quite a bit back in 2008. I sent her a message before I arrived in Singapore and she also recommended the Zoo at Singapore. So we were all set.
On arrival at Singapore Zoo, there were two clear ways to go – The Main Zoo, and the special….Night Safari. I had never done Safari of any type, here I was in Singapore in the darkness of a fake jungle going to see live elephants and giraffes. Years before I’d been to zoos and “animal places” such as Whipsnade Zoo (England, 1992), Artis Zoo (Netherlands, 1991) and even Belfast Zoo (Northern Ireland, the dreary 80s…).
On leaving the main tram station, it suddenly went dark and we were confronted first up to the open sighting of Himalayan Tahr on the left hand side. Further up and round on the right were Markhors and Mouflons. Both grey animals with horns or antlers. Next up was the unusual sighting of one legged flamingoes sitting calmly in a body of water in front of hyenas. What was most surprising was the animals all appeared timid, none of them even came near our carriage, despite the fact they were all out in the wild. Every now and then the tram would stop and allow only the best night cameras to get a good photo shot, I decided there wouldn’t be many photos for the memory on this one, simply my memory itself. I took about 10 blurred photos of darkness without any animals.
Some smaller animals were visible on the night safari, in an area called “Fishing Cat Trail” (a walk which could be done to see the Fishing Cat). These included the bizarre “Flying Fox”, some Otters and Marsh Birds. We were then given a feast of Asian animals on route to the “Leopard Trail”, this included hearing and seeing the Indian Wolf and the Greater Asian Rhinocerous. The best thing was we were just staring straight at their animals. No fences, cages or anything to separate between us and the animals. A great experience. On round we encountered antlered Barasinghas, Sambar Deers and we were nearing the wild cat section, for me the best part of it.
Continuing on round in the East Loop, Servals (wild cats which looked like Leopards as far as I could tell), Lechwe (antlered and deer like) and more Hyenas (spotted ones just to confuse me, the previous ones were striped). You could see them all but we were moving fast, we couldn’t disturb the animals. We had to move fast. Large scary animals on the left were the dark Buffalos and Hippopotamuses. They were drinking water and making more noise than the others. Maybe they saw our dark Night Safari Tram under the twilight of a few lanterns. There were too many animals to take in, sometimes the tram just kept going just after we had only glimpsed the animal.
Another one of the trails was the “Forest Giants Trail”, where we glimpsed a tiger briefly and a Babirusa. That looked to me like a Rhinocerous or Hippopotamous. I’m probably wrong. The elephants were the most clear and visible creatures of the safari, on the West Loop and final section. A video of them actually came out reasonably well. I think there were about 4 elephants. The biggest surprise and definitely the scariest animals I have ever seen came next – GIANT RATS. These looked like rats, but were bigger than humans, they’d eat anything, they were crowded and huddled round some leaves and food and looked exactly like massive scary rats. I was within 5 metres of them. The Night Safari Tram Tour was coming to an end, Giant Anteaters and Gaurs looked like the final creatures. On dismounting the tram, we saw lots of Ankole Cattle. Time was short and we sampled some of the atmosphere and visited the gift shop as we waited for our bus, we went back the same way.
The only real regret from Night Safari was the time element, if we weren’t in such a rush to catch the Sleeper Train, we’d have done all the walking trails, where you can stop more often to enjoy the animals and we’d have gone to the animal shows and had dinner and drinks there. Life ain’t everything you want. But it was fantastic to actually do a Night Safari. Thoroughly enjoyable, maybe just too fast and over too quick. If you’re in Singapore, take more time than we did, and do it all. On leaving Singapore Night Safari, we had 1 and a half hours to get onto the train via hostel. We did it, just…
THE BUS TO THE NIGHT SAFARI:
ELEPHANTS:
NIGHT SAFARI VIDEO 1:
NIGHT SAFARI VIDEO 2:
There is an alternative route to get to the zoo:
Get to Choa Chu Kang MRT Station (about 12 stations after Ang Mo Kio station in the direction of Jurong East), then follow the signs to the bus interchange. Get to berth B1 and board bus 927, which goes directly to the zoo.
Hope this helps!
Thanks for the information Ryan! This was about 5 years ago by the way – can’t believe people are still reading it! Safe travels. Jonny