We were not disappointed. The zoo was incredible. It had a huge variety of animals- from the savannas of Africa to the polar wilderness to the Australian outback- I feel like I went all over the world in one day. Nick chuck and I agreed that our favorites were the primates. protrubius monkeys, gibbons, baboons, chimps and orangutans all were so cute and entertaining we could have watched for hours.
The setup for the orangutans was especially interesting. It was an "open" pin- meaning there were ropes and platforms for these monkeys all over the front area of the park. Low hanging wires deterred the animals from getting too close to us, but you could be walking well away from the orangutan area and look up to see one hanging over your head or swaying on a platform. They're so human and and interactive I felt like waving goodby to them as we left.
That night we had our last Singapore hawker meal. Anna and I finally tried chili crab which turned into one of the messiest meals we've ever had. It was delicious but we had chilli dripping down our elbows by the end.
That night the four of us had an overnight train ride up to Kuala Lumpur. Chuck wrote the best depiction of the fiasco that ensued- so I'm just going to paste his story here:
"The train from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur.
We bought tickets online and through circumstances beyond our control, had only the receipts to show the train masters on our arrival at the Singapore station.It was to be an overnight ride to Kuala Lumpur, so we arrived at a reasonable time ahead of the near-midnight departure time. We got there woefully late for the purposes of the police checkpoint guys, as they demanded to see our tickets! There was then neither time, nor facility (the office was closed at the Singapore boarding station) to get our tickets printed. The train was to leave!
We were told by the policemen we could get the tickets printed on the Malaysian side as their office was still open. All we had to do was hustle across the boarder and catch the same train as she loaded passengers there...
And so we did, hustle.
It was about this time a guy shows up all friendly like talking to us about having the same difficulty (with him having an "e-ticket"), and he sort of joined our group. We later gave him the name Leo, Leo the Liar, because none of us really had caught his name (if he even said it). His English wasn't all that good but his demeanor was exceedingly amicable, and throughout the border checkpoint passage process he kept materializing again and again. It was as though he would get ahead of us and then somehow be where we were going when we caught up to him. Strange, but not unnerving. He was a nice fellow.
Our difficulty on the ticket-for-train front got worse on the Malaysian side of the border. The ticketing office was just closing (they really wanted to turn out the lights and go home), and the two women in charge of it immediately saw that we had screwed things up for them that night. We had only minutes to get our tickets printed before the train would pull out of the station, the office women were hesitating, unsure what to do, or outright stalling until it would be too late...
Can you see our dilemma?
And still hovering, offering no advice or sympathy, was Leo, Leo the Liar. He was stuck to us like some sort of "Traveling Hopefully" companion. At little weird. It was midnight, nobody but us, a few policemen, Leo, and the ticketing girls in this huge cavernous train station.
There were three others, thank God. I found them in a nicely presented Information Booth against the far wall. Layne and Anna were locked into their Quixotic endeavor to get our tickets printed. I sauntered over to the other booth and struck up a conversation with the two women and one gentleman there, all in uniform and one of them with a tag naming her as the "Facilities Manager". I inherently knew this might be a helpful new friendship, so I ingratiated myself ever so gently...
Then I returned to the counter with our party, and of course, Leo. Things there had gone from "not easily done" to "unlikely" and tending toward the "no freakin' way" level of success.
Ok, I know what you might be thinking, that Leo came in and saved the day with just the right half-truth to motivate the counter gals so that we could get our tickets and board the train seconds before it pulled out of the station.
Nope. But close.
I walked back to the issuing counter just in time to hear that things had worsened. The woman was now telling the kids she could not issue the tickets, something about being too late and wrong station and office was closed, etc. And the only way for us to board that particular train would be to buy another round of four tickets! Otherwise, at midnight, we we simply on our own in Malaysia without Ringgit until the next train...hours away.
I did an about face and went back to my new friends and pleaded with them to please help in any way they could as our train was minutes from leaving without us. The manager had this wonderful pitying look on her face and said she would speak with them. She and I, along with her two other workmates began walking across the large lobby. I saw the women at the counter had turned out the lights and hung out the "closed" placard, and completed their effort to turn cheerful faces into frustrated, somewhat dejected ones!
Three words. None of us could understand what the Facilities Manager said to our nemesis, the ticket lady. But three words from her did the trick. Less than two minutes later we had a passage guarantee in hand for four people, ran down the steps, hurried along by a conductor that wanted us out of there, to the last car on the train. As we ran by, I blew my newest friends a kiss and salute for their help. They smiled and nodded. I am almost certain they held the train for us, for there seem to be no one at the station unaware of our plight.
Lets not forget Leo. Yes, Leo ran with us, entered the car with us, became one of us! One big happy family of tourists getting out of a jam together. Leo found a seat just across the aisle from our assigned seating, everything hunky dory.
So we all shared a huge sigh of relief, found the most comfy position we could in the seats facing backwards, and settled in to catch a few winks during the overnight ride that would stop at every station between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.
Perhaps an hour later, I was sleeping two rows ahead of Nick and Layne when the conductor came through checking tickets. The kids had noticed Leo was gone when the conductor first came through, presumably to the toilet, and then returned once the conductor had made his pass. Leo's plan would have worked I think, except the conductor came back on a second sweep of our car. That's when he earned the "Liar" part of his name. When asked for his ticket, he told the conductor he was part of our group. Conductor saw through this of course and turned to Layne to confirm. Sweet Laynie was then put into the role of unwitting accomplice. She kind of liked the guy, but was gently honest, saying that he seemed a really nice guy but...
No, not one of us.
Leo was escorted somewhere else, and never seen again (by us). Perhaps they have a jail-car?
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