In Singapore

Friday 19th August

A fruitless search for a camera kit for the iPad consumed some of the morning, along with a search for the correct place to buy a tourist travel pass. It took some time to find the correct station, but by 2 pm we were on our way to Singapore zoo. The journey took nearly 2 hours, but gave us a chance to appreciate some of the smarter suburbs - wide boulevards and low-rise developments and lots of forested areas and reservoirs.  we had not expected so much forest.

The zoo is quite good; many of the animals have very natural-looking enclosures and quite a few of the monkeys are just trained to stay in particular trees, very close to the visitors. You could touch them, though people sensibly don't seem to.

You can get close to the orang utangs too, in fact the zoo photographer will take your picture with them if you want. We contented ourselves with our own photos. The hanging thing underneath the big male's chin is a neck pouch, which he uses to store food to eat later.

You can also have elephant rides, presumably with photographs as well, but there seemed to be no takers while we were there.

The otters were very appealing, whistling and chirruping at the visitors, and play fighting with one another. You can watch them underwater too, as you can with the pigmy hippos. Sadly, you can't take decent photos of them, there are too many reflections in the glass.

We saw three rare white tigers, two playing like kittens though one of them prefered cooling off in the water.

The tapir completely ignores visitors, in fact later, during the Night Safari, it decided to snooze on the road, and the little train the visitors travel on had to drive round it.

The Zoo closes at 6, so there is time to eat before the Night Safari starts.

The trip in the Night Safari train, which is completely open, is supposed to be a hushed affair, but the guide couldn't get the people in our carriage to shut up, they jumped up and down and screamed with excitement, they roared at the lions and howled at the wolves and frightened the deer. One or two took flash photographs too, which is not allowed. We took no photos, we'll just have to rely on memory. Grazing animals like the deer and the tapir wander freely and show little interest in the train, and there are wide moats separating the visitors from the lions and tigers and hyenas. You really appreciate the sheer size of a rhino, being so close to it.

After the train, you can walk through the rain forest, which is a real experience, and you see animals which are normally snoozing during the day. The leopard pretended to be asleep so we would go away, his ears twitched and now and again he peeked out of a half-closed eye to see if we had gone. The bats in the mangroves were amazing, they fly so close to you might think they intend to part your hair! Paul was very taken with the wolves and the tiny tarsus which jumped about inches away from us.

By 9.30 we were very weary and my feet were hurting, so we made our way back by bus and train.