Singapore, with its tall buildings and wide roads, busy malls and crowded markets- all of it packed into a tiny little corner of Southeast Asia- hardly seems like a likely place for encounters with the wild. Which is why the Night Safari, the world’s first (and unless I’m mistaken, only) night zoo, comes as a bit of a surprise. The Night Safari boasts some 1,200 animals of about 110 species, spread out across eight distinct zones that represent geographical regions like the savannah, the Southeast Asian rainforest, the jungles of Myanmar, the terai (the wooded foothills of the Himalayas) and the pampas. The Night Safari is different from most other zoos in a number of ways. The animals, instead of being caged, are separated by natural barriers- moats and ditches, in most cases, or glass and barely-visible wire when it comes to slightly more ferocious species. Most interestingly, however, the Night Safari offers just what its name suggests- a chance to see animals at night. The zoo opens from 7:30 every evening till 12 midnight, and we got there at 7:15, just in time to buy a ticket for a 45-minute tram ride through the safari area. Our tram ride took us through fairly dense forests and grasslands, passing alongside a lake. On the way, we managed to see a vast number of creatures- elephants, tapir, swamp deer, sangai (an extremely rare species of deer known in northeastern India as the ‘dancing deer’), tiger, Asiatic lion, leopard cat, fishing cat, leopards, rhinos, hippos, otters, giraffes, oryx, markhor, chital (spotted deer), and God knows what else. After the tram ride, we spend another 45 minutes walking down the trails through the park- which meant a lot more wildlife seen, and at much closer quarters.If you’ve been in real forests, if you’ve seen the real thing, the Night Safari looks obviously contrived. It’s a trifle too crowded, and many of the people are noisy and loud- behaving more beastly than the beasts. But despite all that, it’s an impressive collection and an excellent experience- one to definitely opt for if you’re in Singapore.
Entry to the Night Safari is S$15.45 for adults and S$10.30 for children under 12.