Howesit Singapore Adventures

Ruth helping a local to phone home.

Asian Elephant shifting logs.

Singapore Zoo
One of our first adventues out and about was a day spent at the Singapore zoo. This is a really cool place to visit. Allow a day and aim to arrive early. At 9:00 am the wash the elephants, we weren't that early. Throughout the day there are a number of shows that take place that are really worth seeing. We really enjoyed the elephant show. It involves the elephants and their keepers talking and demonstrating how the elephants were used for logging opertions throughout Asia. It is entertaining and highly informative.
As we wandered we were impressed by the oppeness of the zoo. we often felt like we were sharing the compounds of the animals. There is the opportunity to get close and enjoy so many animals. For us we found it useful to become aware of the animals from the Asian Rain forests, which is a strngth of this zoo.
Ruth had an interesting encounter with some of the monkeys that do roam freely throughout the zoo. She was texting one of our family at the side of the track when a monkey came right up to her and held the phone. It leaned over and attempted to read her text. For a long time it studied the phones holding it and turning it over. It did not try to take it away but showed a real interest in the phone.

Sungei Buloh

Great Egrets wading over mudflats at Sungei Buloh

Encouraged by our zoo adventure we visited a wetland santuary on the north western tip of Singapore. It is a series of ponds on a river estuary opening out into the Straits of Johor, with Malaysia clearly visble across the water. It is recognised as a site of ecological importance. There are a lot of migratory birds that pass through here each year. It is mainly mangrove forest. There were lots of wading birds here when we visited including Herons and Egrets. We were also lucky to see a sea eagle gliding high in the air. I was facinated by the monitor lizzards that live in the park, some of them are easily two metres long. The ones we saw were sunning themselves on the board walk or on mangrove tree trunks. They look so big and slow, but they swim through the water with ease.

These Monitor Lizards are an amazing size. Guess who gives way?

This is an interesting place to visit, it is as remote as Singapore gets so it it is not serviced by trains or busses. we went as a part of a private tour. It was even more interesting for us because it is a stopping place for some of the birds that migrate to MIranda near Thames.