LittleSandyBeach

Last Sunday we set our alarms early for an action packed day at Mandai Wildlife Reserve. We luckily found a great deal to visit five of the parks so planned a route and headed off. It’s located in the northern part of Singapore so had to get a metro for 1 hour and then a shuttle bus.

We started off at Rainforest Wild Asia which only opened last year and features very immersive and natural habitats for the animals. With many different trails, bridges and elevated walkways you get the chance to have some very close up encounters with different animals from sun bears to tigers.

After walking through some of the very realistic trails we headed up to The Karsts exhibit with Francois Langurs sitting on the rocks.

We then went on the tiger trail which takes you right next to the tiger enclosure that was absolutely massive with multiple different waterfalls and pools for the tiger to enjoy.

After seeing many more animals including monkeys, tapirs and sun bears we came to the Siamese crocodiles. Another very impressive enclosure.

We spent around two hours walking around all the different trails and then it was time to head to our next park of the day, Bird Paradise.

Bird Paradise is Asia’s largest bird park with over 3,500 birds from 400+ species. It is over 17 hectares and has 8 massive walk in aviaries that mimic different biomes from around the world.

We thought the most impressive aviary was the ‘Crimson Wetlands’ that really did have the wow factor.

We also really enjoyed the Wings of Asia exhibit as it reminded us of many places we’ve seen on our travels, especially the rice fields in Vietnam!

After spending two hours walking through all the different aviaries and being blown away we hopped on the shuttle bus to take us to our third park of the day, Singapore Zoo!

Singapore Zoo is consistently rated one of the best zoos in the world due to its conservation efforts, natural rainforest environment and wildlife welfare. We saw so much over the course of four hours so here’s some of our favourites…

Singapore Zoo is famous for having the world’s first free range orangutang exhibit where you can see Bornean and Sumatran orangutans swinging through the treetops above your head.

The next park to visit was River Wonders. It is the only river focused park in Asia and has over 11,000 animals. You walk through all the great rivers of the world exploring what lives in them and around their banks.

They also have the world’s biggest freshwater aquarium that showcases animals that thrive in the Amazon River. Our favourites definitely being the Manatees!

We then went on the river quest boat ride that allows you to see even more animals from the Amazon including jaguars, capybaras, anteaters and lots more.

Our favourite area in River Wonders though had to be the Giant Panda Pavilion which is the largest Panda exhibit in South East Asia. They have two Giant Panda’s called Kai Kai and Jia Jia. As they are on loan from China as part of the breeding programme no expense has been spared and the whole pavilion is climate controlled to mimic the temperatures back in China. They also had one of Tasha’s favourite animals, a very cute Red Panda!

Then at 7.15pm we entered our final park of the day, The Night Safari. We decided to get all the walking trails out the way first and then get onto the 30 minute shuttle bus around the main enclosures.

Throughout all of the parks they try to use an open concept using deep water moats, glass and hidden fences instead of just fences to create a more naturalistic environment. This is great until a hyena just stares at you like you’re a lovely steak…

We saw so many animals including the incredibly endangered pangolin, armadillo, snakes, spiders and many more! The creepiest thing we did was going into the Malayan Flying Fox walk through enclosure…. They looked like bats but much bigger with lots hanging from the ceiling above…

We then went and jumped on the shuttle to take the 30 minute night safari around the park. It was truly amazing and such a different experience to any other zoo we’ve been to! Here’s some snippets…

That brought our day to an end. 12 hours later and 45,000 steps each it was definitely a challenge to fit it all in but was so worth it.