Hi everyone,

We woke up at a reasonable time this morning and had our hotel brekky. We’ve fully beaten jet lag now and are in the flow. It’s nice. Couple of slices of sourdough with peanut butter and we were ready to start the day. Today we went to Mandai Wildlife Reserve. The only way to get there is by taxi, unless you want to spend 1+ hours on public trains and busses, which we didn’t, a little bit extra for the taxi saves over an hour and was worth it to us.

The Mandai wildlife reserve is enormous and it is made up of five different parks. They have the Singapore Zoo, Night Safari, River Wonders, Bird Paradise and Rainforest Wild Asia. We bought a combo ticket that allowed us to come and go through all of the parks. We were only able to do 4 as the night safari didn’t open until 6pm and we weren’t able to stay that late.

The first one we went to was Singapore Zoo. It was the first one they built and has been open for like 50 years. It is honestly a great zoo. The animals are vast and unique, you barely have to walk from one enclosure to the next and most of the time you have the animals to yourself. You can also get really close to them. We loved it.

We finished the zoo at about lunch time and had lunch at a fake hawker centre within the zoo called food republic. We got meat and rice, which was okay.

The next park we visited was river wonders. It is based on the major rivers around the world (Nile, Mekong etc) and showcased the creatures that can be found within these rivers. Some pretty gnarly fish indeed.

The main event of river wonders was absolutely the panda though and the only reason we really went into this park. Two giant pandas that were chilling out in an air conditioned enclosures smashing some bamboo. That’s the life.

Then to get to the next park we had to jump on the shuttle bus where we arrived at bird paradise. Before we went in we grabbed a strange gelato at a place called birds of paradise (which usually exists separate to bird paradise) to have some ice cream. The main flavour which we tried was Strawberry Basil which was strange but somehow worked. We also tried Hojicha sea salt which wasn’t as good. They came in a thyme cone which was also strange but not bad.

We went into bird paradise where it started raining. They have all of the different lands which are connected via elevated walkways and separated by interactive information rooms. In each land, the birds are just out and about and amongst you. It’s pretty cool.

The main event at the bird paradise were the flamingos. So many of them and such a strange creature.

After bird paradise we took the walk over to the fourth and final park rainforests Asia. We had no idea what to expect with this park as we hadn’t done any research prior. It turns out this park was fuckin awesome. It was a series of hiking trails that emulate walking through the rainforest. We completed two of them to start.

At one point you end up in a mountainous type area with suspension bridges and climbing walls

By the time we were about to start a third trail it was absolutely pissing down rain. Luckily, they also have a boardwalk where you can walk over the top of all of the trails and see all the scenery which we ended up doing, but it was raining very heavily so we had to make for the exit, which happens to be a massive amazing cave complex that we trekked through.

We absolutely loved our time at Mandai wildlife reserve. It felt like another world. Easily the best zoo and wildlife complex we have ever been to. Could not recommend it highly enough.

We took the cab home and then went out for a walk down to Zion riverside for a cheap hawker dinner. We got their famous Fried Kway Teow, which was a bit fishy for our tastes. We also had some fried and steamed dumplings.

Then we went over to great world for a bit of shopping and to get dessert where we grabbed an incredible pistachio gelato that really hit the spot.

Step count – 23,146 or 16.61kms – massive day.

Costs

Fraser suites: $351

Park tickets: $305.65

Taxis: $57.91

Souvenirs: $167.50

Gelato: $22.55

VR experience: $11.10

Lunch At food republic: $33.07

Dinner at Zion: $34.17

Gelato after dinner: $9.25

Chocolates: $3.80

Total: $996

Much love,

Ronnie, Aimee and Julian