Night Safari

Video of a Slow Loris (you probably want to mute out the screaming child)

Speaking of themeparks, on Saturday night I went on the Night Safari. It was no Kruger Park, but it sure was cool. I had heard from others that it was overrated. Maybe it’s overrated if you hate animals. The park is incredible and again, like the airport, like Singapore, everything is designed with the participants’ holistic experience in mind, down to the smallest details of the zebra-shaped chairs.

The adventure begins on a tram, with a guide who weaves together facts about the animals specially picked for nocturnal viewing. In the manufactured moonlight (which they mimic with the precision of a broadway crew), you have the rare opportunity to see these animals at their most active, in a setting that feels more like you’ve stumbled upon a wide-open set for Jurassic Park than a traditional barbed-wire zoo. Off of the tram, you have the opportunity to walk along small, winding pathways past a munching rhinosaurus or a moonlit herd of Indian swamp deer.

Those animals you once had to peer through nose-printed glass in the dark recesses of a dank, musty zoo room to see? They come alive at night; and they are incredible to behold. I always used to rush past these slow moving creepers. But suddenly in the dark, without the throngs of loud (why are they always so loud?) tourists, and stiffling noon heat, you can start to relax into the motions of nocturnal animals, like that of the aptly named Slow Loris, and imagine what it would be like to patiently observe these guys in the wild.

If you do get a chance to go, check out the bat mangrove walk. In this small room you can experience being up close and personal with some harmless (but admittedly creepy) Malayan bats and surprisingly large flying foxes. No glass between you and the bats means you can get as close as your nerves will dare.