Everything went smoothly to get here - from the car trip to Melbourne, overnight in a motel near the airport then connecting with Jon who flew in from Adelaide. There are 9 of us in the group; Helen and David, Alison and Christopher, Jon, Hannah and Chris, Daisy and Chris. Yes - three blokes called Chris!
Instead of breakfast in bed for Mothers Day I had breakfast at the airport and some lovely cards.
Waiting to board was quite painless
and so was the flight. A minibus was waiting to take us to our hotel, the Conrad Centennial where we enjoyed a belated happy hour before a walk around the surrounding area. I am pleased to find a nearby Starbucks and plan to have a frappaccino very soon.
We split into two camps for the first morning; 4 had a leisurely hotel breakfast and 5 went to the Singapore Zoo for breakfast with the orangutans.
We joined them later and Daisy had lots of photos to show Chris B:
and all saw the excellent elephant show.
What a great zoo! It rained but no one minded because it's so warm, around 30' C. School kids were everywhere, each with his or her phone and ridiculous drink.
River Safari is nearby and we had tickets for that, a pleasant cool ride on a boat around a reservoir followed by a visit to the pandas and giant fish
David loved the giant fish
Hannah and ChrisM spent twelve and a half hours at the zoo, enjoying every moment but the rest of us with less stamina returned to the hotel for Happy Hour before returning for Night Safari. What we didn't realise was at that time of day 20,000 Malaysians are commuting back home after a day's work and school in Singapore. The traffic was horrendous and what had been a twenty minute jaunt in the morning became an eighty minute crawl.
The Night Safari forecourt was abuzz with people and screaming children as hundreds of us queued Disneyland-style like sheep going to slaughter to board the little trams. Where did all these people come from? The morning zoo was pleasantly populated.
Fortunately the rain stopped (but not the screaming kids) and we ambled around the exhibits of bored-looking animals eating under lights.
Not worth the awful taxi journey. The morning zoo remains my favourite and Daisy bought me a little otter as a momento.
No comments:
Post a Comment