SINGAPORE - NIGHT ZOO SAFARI - 2005

Keith and I both agree that Singapore Zoo's Night Safari is absolutely the best thing we've ever done in our lives! And there's no greater high than getting spooked by angry lions, I promise you. You must must must get around to doing it yourself one day.

We didn't take many photographs of the night because you're forbidden to use a flash around the animals but we did take photos in and around the cafe in the centre of the island where we sheltered from the angry lions, waiting out the end of the fireworks display.

F.Y.I. Don't visit this zoo during Chinese New Year when Singapore lets off a massive fireworks display and all the animals get bigtime spooked. Or do, if you want an extra dose of excitement.

SINGAPORE ZOO NIGHT SAFARI

This is a program where Singapore Zoo supports its "Endangered Species Breeding Program" by letting gits-like-us walk through their forests at night for a high price. Keith read about it and decided he wanted to do it desperately and, like a good wife should, I went along to ensure he wasn't eaten by leopards.

It's on a small island cut off from the rest of the zoo and the whole place is lit with moon-light levels of blue light discretely placed around the trees so you don't notice the source and you wander freely along paths through the rainforest where, if you're lucky, you get to see all these nocturnal creatures.

I can do tea and smokes anyplace, can't I!

And I covered up anticipating mosquitoes,

but didn't notice any.

It's meant to be all open-and-free but I noticed subtle conturing of the landscape with ha-has and electric wire and mesh and non-reflective glass in appropriate places, secretly keeping the predators away from the public, which made me very happy because the concept really is downright irresponsible when you think about it. There are also trams if you don't want to do the thing on foot which is also very kind of them.

And there's a chic cappachino cafe, all sienna plaster and gorgeous, right in the centre of the jungle for if the going gets tough - or for you to hide in whenever the city lets off fireworks and the animals get all narky. It's my idea of a perfect world having cafes in the centres of jungles, although here the tea they make is inexorable!

OK, now for the animals. Below I will tell you about the angry spooked lions so I won't do it again although it definitely was the highlight of the five hours we were out there. That whole episode was soooo cool, although we didn't think so until after it was all over.

We saw lots of a very wide range of various endangered species but mostly only off in the distance so it was mostly like a regular zoo. However we did have a few meaningful encounters which took our breath away.

Like, we had a tapir come right up to us and it stood right next to Keith, gazed lovingly up into his face then put its head on Keith's chest. Amazing! It was black-and-white and HUGE. I didn't know they came that big. They tell you not to touch the animals but there's nothing you can do if they want to touch you. We decided it was a she and I'm going "It's the beard. She fancies you. She wants you." and then started to sing-song "You've got a girlfriend!" but that's just because I was jealous it was happening to him instead of me! Keith didn't laugh, however. He was transfixed with the wonder of it and was glowing with pure pleasure. Then a tram came along and she moved off or we'd probably still be there now.

And then there was the tarsier. (2008 - It had to have been a baby because the books all say they're about 6 inches tall, but this one was closer to three!) That encounter was so magical and we spoke in breathless whispers for ages afterwards. See, we were walking along when something winsy-small leapt onto a log right next to us, right at eye-level. We thought it was a mouse but then it stood upright and looked at us, hands on its hips, exactly like a human would stand, staring at us querilously. It only had two nipples, had a hairless chest and stomach, was about the size of my middle finger and, yes, looked exactly like a tiny massive-eyed fairy. And then it jumped off the log and vanished into the undergrowth. Instant love! I instantly wanted to get involved in preventing the destruction of whatever rainforest in whatever part of the world this magical little creature comes from just so they can continue to live on this planet. Gorgeous!

And there was the leopard. Most disappointing. This spotted cat, the size of a labrador, leaps down from a rock right next to us, rubs up against our legs, looks up at us benignly and says "Meeow!" then leaps back up onto a high rock and vanishes into the dark. We're going "I didn't know leopards said "Meeow!" and "Bah humbug!" and "If that's what leopards are really like we've been conned our whole lives." It wasn't until half-an-hour later when we came across three real leopards that we discovered what we'd encountered earlier was something totally different. (We looked it up in "What leopard is that?" on the zoo's identification chart and discovered it was a Clouded Leopard and it said that they're harmless and very cat-like, which we can definitely confirm.)

Real leopard-leopards are exactly what we've all been led to believe. They're HUGE - actually bigger than the two lions we saw up close - and heavily muscled and are downright scary and they say "Rooooaaarrrrr" the way they're meant to. These leopards were in a supposedly-invisible meshed area and behind supposedly-invisible glass - but they were leaning right up against it, trying to get to us, so we could see it was a con - and one of the nicest cons I've ever come across - I would have HATED meeting these ones for real - as they are genuinely terrifying creatures. RESPECT!!!

Oh, and there were other cat-creatures behind secret glass as well. They were the size of house-cats and looked like the sort of creatures you'd have in your home. It was only the lean muscle-mass and the spots that let you know they weren't regular cats. They looked so harmless we couldn't understand why they were as discretely removed from contact with the public as the leopard-leopards, but when we looked up "What leopard is that?" - can't remember what they're called - we discovered they're considered very, very dangerous. And they're not classified "felix" either which was odd considering how much they looked like Siamese cats. They have the same classification as other leopards, although I've already forgotten what that's called. (Can you see a horror film in there someplace too?)

What else did we see up close? Oh, the otters. They were so cute. They were hungry and doing tricks for us. No, seriously! Real tricks! We were so pleased when a nice Malay forest ranger came to throw fish to them because we felt mean seeing them work so hard when we had nothing to give them. Hard to believe these are actually wild animals, but they are. And no one taught them these tricks; they came up with them on their own. I don't really know anything about otters? Are they meant to be really clever or something? They seem to be.

Oh, oh, oh, the mouse-deer. They were only a foot away from us. Sooo gorgeous. They're so tiny and they look exactly like guinea pigs on stilts.

And before I forget: we saw a turkin!!! It's a cross between a chicken and a turkey. They're mules and infertile but did you ever know that you could actually cross-breed them? You really need to see one since they're really strange-looking, in fact they're downright creepy.

And that's what we encountered up close although we saw heaps and heaps more. Elephants frolicking in a river in a gully. Lots of tigers - even the zoo's very special albino tiger - on their own small island. (Tigers are even bigger than the leopards which were themselves even bigger than the lions, which means tigers are really only slightly smaller than grizzly bears. Oh, and they do this blood-freezing low growl that has to be heard to be believed. It freezes you in your tracks! Terrifying!) Giraffes, zebras, huge range of endangered deer, lots of things I'd never heard of and lots of things I had heard of but never expected to see.

In fact, they've got a veritable Noah's Ark on that island. Just about every endangered species on earth. And they're breeding them successfully too. That was actually the most important part of the safari for me. I checked to see that the successful breeding had continued since they started letting people wander around among these creatures and it has. I wouldn't have been a party to it if it hadn't.

So that was the Night Safari. A beautiful beautiful experience. Five gorgeous hours. We didn't want to leave but a nice Indian guy came along and told us it was twenty minutes past midnight and the zoo was actually closed and we'd missed all the regular transport but the staff bus was leaving in ten minutes so we could go with them if we left immediately. We said we didn't mind staying all night and why didn't he just pretend he hadn't seen us but he said the lights were already meant to be off and it got genuinely frightening in the real dark, so we walked back with him out of the jungle.

And that's the story of the Singapore Night Zoo Safari. You have to do it. You really must. Put it on your list of Must-dos and circle it in red and give it a very high priority. It's the best thing I have ever done in my life and I want you all and everyone else on earth to do it too ... and let's all do everything we can to save the rainforest ... if only so the world can continue to have tansiers which are the best thing I have ever, ever, ever seen EVER, EVER, EVER!

THE TWO BEST STORIES FROM OUR NIGHT ZOO EXPERIENCE:

1) Before they let you onto the island, you get a big lecture on how you're not allowed to make any noise, make any sudden moves, or show any light because it can frighten the animals and they become erratic and dangerous.

Well, sheerly by chance, we're up on a hill looking at these two magnificent lions high on a ledge above us, with only a ha-ha between us and them, when suddenly Singapore lets off its annual fireworks display to celebrate Chinese New Year. And it's all happening in the sky immediately above us. Talk about SUDDEN NOISE, MOVEMENT AND LIGHT!!! And we're in exactly the wrong place when it happens.

Instantly, the lions go from relaxed-loll to total anger, and they look at us like they think we're responsible, and they let out this roar letting us know we're about to be severely punished, and their muscles harden and they're preparing to leap and we just know that they can get from that ledge across the ha-ha to us anytime they choose! And they're about to do it too!

What can you do! Totally terrified, we back away slowly, and the moment we're around the corner we start this panicked run down to the cafe where we can see regular lighting through the trees.

And we're around the second corner - convinced the lions have made the leap and are just behind us - when we see a middle-aged American couple walking up the hill towards us. We tell them "Don't go up there. The lions have been spooked by the fireworks and they're dangerous!" and the Yank woman replies, nastily, "Don't be ridiculous! I've heard the song. The lion sleeps at night!" and they continue to up the hill.

I'm standing there, flapping like a fish out of water, going "But ... but ... but ..." wondering if I shouldn't race after them and tackle them to the ground or something. But Keith says "Let them go! Someone has to win The Darwin Award for this year!" and I realise I've done all I can, so we continue our run down to the cafe, only not so fast now we know there's two juicy targets between us and them.

But when we get there, since I'm basically a nice person, I tell the Zoo wardens in there what has happened and they go into instant panic mode, grab their tranquilliser guns and go racing off to take care of it.

So, obviously, even when there are people around who honestly deserve The Darwin Award (given each year for those people who've died most spectacularly as a result of their own sheer stupidity), Singapore Zoo prefers it doesn't happen at their place!

2) There was lovely Indian couple who walked alongside us for a while and we chatted a little here and there. Perfect English. Nice jokes. Obviously very well educated. Anyway, they had this tiny little daughter between them, a parent holding a hand each and occasionally swinging her along, all very loving and close and happy. Then suddenly the little girls screams in terror and clutches her mother, and "Mummy, that's the thing that attacked me!"

We'd come across hyenas - discretely behind a ha-ha - and the mother replies in very measured, amiable tones, "Yes, and see, that's the mummy, and that's her little baby!" and, since the kid is trembling in fear - sick with fear even - I say "Is this really necessary?" in the most withering of tones and the mum whispers to me "Psychologist says I have to do it!" and then she switches to Hindi and we realise, from the obviously rehearsed way the mum's talking and the little kiddy's scars - which we previously hadn't noticed - that the whole purpose of this excursion was to help the little girl overcome some trauma. Most likely to do with hyenas, yes?

We lingered for a while to eavesdrop until we realised they weren't going to revert to English and, besides, they seemed to be doing an excellent job handling what was undoubtedly a very tricky situation. Mummy seemed to be making much of the baby hyenas and the fact that they too had mummies. It seemed all very interesting and high-drama-ish and they so obviously had come a very long way to do it and was obviously going to take ages so we said our farewells to the father, who was standing by looking anxious, and left them to do it without an audience.

This begs the question: do they have wild hyenas in India? Or would this family have come from Africa?

And the really important question: do we really need to conserve hyenas when they are so obviously still in abundance somewhere in the world, so much so they get to attack tiny little children who certainly don't deserve it?

Tapirs, yes! Tansiers, definitely yes! Tigers, yes! But is every species on earth worth conserving? Or is this whole question too controversial to be handled here?