Delights and Dangers of Wildlife - Safety in Northern Australia, South Africa and Singapore's Safari, and food, fur, and fashion in the USA and worldwide

 

Back garden in Hatch End, London, England, with two foxes. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Cahill crossing in Australia is notorious for its crocodiles. Just looking at the pictures puts me off. They are building a better crossing but meanwhile people are ignoring signs.

Looking closer, I see it is not a riverbank at all. It is a low crossing, a bit like stepping stones pushed together, enough for a tough car to drive acrosss, slowly.

Apparently one can got trapped in the river and the occupants had to swim past the cross to safety on dry land. Safety  from water the minute you are out of the water. But safety from crocodiles - only if you stand well back from the river!

In the UK earlier this year we received a parking fine, a sign hidden behind wheelie bins, in a road where other people parked. My husband had said: 'Everybody else is doing it.'

That doesn't defend one person from being endangered - or all of them.

Signs are not enough. Firstly, not everybody can read English. 

Secondly, not everybody can read. 

Thirdly, people think they can jump back, or believe crocodiles stay in the water and the edge. Children and adults don't realize the reptiles jump onto land. 

Fourthly, time to put up a barrier. If it is costly, find sponsors. 

It is natural to lean over water to have a look. Build viewing platforms with binoculars back from the edge. To make signs more effective, display statistics of people killed. Make fines for standing by the edge.

The signs don't protect you, if there is nowhere to retreat or stand safely. 

I walked along a boardwalk pier in Singapore. At intervals there were places where you could stop and look out. But crocodiles or other creatures could leap up. I never did that again. 

I can entertain myself, and grand children, eating ice cream or fruit and watching films. We don't need to run around crocodiles playing dare.

Eating Funny Food

I have eaten lots of funny food. Crocodile. In the USA . Was it the USA.  Yes, now I remember - they gave me a certificate to prove it!

Wichetty Grup In Australia

I tried wichetty grub soup  in a restaurant in Perth. Its selling point was the unusual foods.

South African Safari & Lion Park

I have been on a late evening Safaris (South Africa) where you see very little in the twilight.

At a lion park we were warned not to get out of our car. Afterwards, I researched.  I learned that a Japanese family had got out of their car to pose their children next to baby lions. Resulting in a human fatality.

Singapore farmed Crocodiles

I have been to a crocodile breeding farm in Singapore.

The Night Safari in Singapore is a compromise. The animals can roam freely. The pedestrian visitors are separated by a deep gorge. The travelling vehicle visitors are kept in moving and camouflaged trains. 

Camouflage clothes

Wearing Wild Animal Clothes

Useful Websites

Australian Museum Wichetty Grubs

Glamorous Entertaining In Singapore: top ten from free to a fling

Glamorous Entertaining
If you are looking for somewhere to entertain a visitor to Singapore - or entertain yourself, these would be my Secret Seven suggestions, in alphabetical order:
Secret Seven Hotels and Restaurants - oops, now it's eight - I'll make that ten.

Clarke Quay where you can sit and admire the view.

Clarke Quay - boats, boat trips, flowers, fountains, riverside restaurants.
Gardens By The Bay - a day out. Expensive restaurants - or simple outdoor eating at a hawker centre is expensive but then it's back to the waterfalls and trees and flowers. Plus souvenirs of clothes or pot plants.
IO - Italian in Hillv2 - go for lunch or a take away or catering or just for the desserts
Marina Bay Sands (Very pricey top to the tower restaurants and bars and must book. We stayed in Singapore with a friend for a fortnight and took him there on our last night.  He was so impressed that when his teenage children visited him from overseas he took them there for one night in the bedroom to enjoy the rooftop infinity swimming pool with views over the city.
Night Safari (on site evening buffet can be booked) see the animals having their supper at twilight.

Colourful Clarke Quay.

Walking around Clarke Quay.

Park Royal Hotel - (Limes Restaurant) (Coffee is $7++ - total about $10 just for the coffee.)
Raffles Hotel - history, shops, restaurants at all prices and delis, Singapore Sling in the bar or just walk around, or stay at the expensive hotel
Sheraton Towers Hotel (dine by the indoor waterfall)
Table at 7 restaurant for dinner (Degustation or tasting menu about $88.) Does outside catering for grand affairs such dinners for ministers - not religious ones I presume but the government(s).
Tippling Club restaurant, where neither the plates nor the foods are names, colours or shapes you have seen before.

Park Royal hotel outside.

Even a glass of water at Table at 7 restaurant is served in style in a fine-lipped glass subtly advertising Aquapanna bottled water

TABLE AT 7 RESTAURANT. Fine flavours.

Tippling Restaurant. Unusual food. Quirky surroundings. Expensive gourmet.

(See my previous posts.)
Can't afford it? You can walk through the Sheraton Towers Hotel and the Park Royal Hotel. Just put on your smartest, prettiest clothes so you can pose for photos and look the part. Walk around and  budget $20 for a coffee or cake in elegant surroundings.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, speaker and author.

Singapore Visitor's Sights

Attractions, Museums and Gardens
Areas to see: City centre, Chinatown, Little India.
Hotels to see: Raffles; Shangri-la (waterfalls); Hyatt (waterfall); Sheraton (waterfall); Marriott by Tang's department store (palm trees in lobby); Marina Bay

Gardens By The Bay. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Gardens By the Bay Flower Dome

Gardens by the Bay Flower Dome.

Photo by Trevor Sharot. Copyright.

Gardens By the Bay
Gardens By the Bay riverside walks
Night Safari
Zoo
Bird Park
Marina Bay Sands top floor
History Museum
Philatelic Stamp Museum
Peranakan Museum
Bridge, pedestrian, painted
Bridge, pedestrian, helix
Changi
Old Ford Factory

Fish head curry. Banana leaf. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Tours and Rides
Singapore Flyer
Duck tour
Sentosa Island
Hop on hop off bus. (Check whether you get a free bus tour from Changi or around the city by showing your Singapore Airlines ticket.)

MRT
A must see. Stunning stations include the busy and delaying multi-storey, multi-walkway Dhoby Ghaut station. Go to the latest station which opens Dec 27 2015, Cashew Road, and ride the loop where the windows suddenly go white and block the view as you pass within feet of the windows of skyscrapers built beside the stations and tracks.

Shopping
Orchard Road
Mustaphas (Western, Indian, large sizes)
Underground walk from ION to basements 1 and 2 from Orchard station to Ngee Ann City
Chinese department store in Chinatown

Special Restaurants and Foods
Fish Head curry and rice and curry served on a banana leaf in a restaurant in or near Little India such as Muthu's.
For a cheap meal, go to a hawker centre, a circle of fast food kiosks of various nationalities including Chinese and other Asians and usually a Western one and if you are lucky a fruit and justice bar, in the basement or top floor of most shopping malls.
For moderate to expensive fun at an informal place try IO.
For a special occasion, book drinks or dinner Raffles Hotel or at the top of Marina Bay. Or gourmet.
For tea time, try the rainbow cake. (See my earlier post.)
For a gourmet dinner, try the place I reviewed in an earlier post, where the chef makes surprise dishes for you (Fratini restaurant).You might also like the buzz of the waterside restaurants along Boat Quay and Clarke Quay. You can also dine on a boat.

Seasonal foods:
Moon cakes (autumn), all flavours, sold in restaurants, department stores, special shops which pop up, bakeries, markets, delis, even ice cream shops.

Moon cakes.

Chinese New Year - restaurants and clubs have New Year dinners, at which the main dish is a mixture of foods in a communal bowl eaten with chopsticks, starting by everybody tossing food in the air above the plate, called Yusheng. (See Wikipedia, Hungry Go Where and lots more sites.) Wear washable clothes.
See my previous posts on Singapore

Seasonal events
Formula 1
Great Singapore Sale
Chinese New Year (lights in streets and lion dances)
Boat trips to islands

Events:
Guided tours of museums.
(Talks. Join Friends of the Museum.)
Speakers' Groups. (See Toastmasters International website, find a club.)
Hash House Harriers. (Running through the jungle.)
See the free newspapers at the entrances to railway stations.
Buy The Straits Times. You may find a copy on your plane or in the airport lounge. Singapore daily newspapers are online.

Lions and lion dances, Chinese new year

Cassata Siciliana from IO italian Osteria.

Discounts -
see maps which are free from Changi airport and major hotels.
Bargains - fixed prices in some shops. But get a Chinese friend to negotiate bargains even in shops with fixed prices. If assistants follow you around, try looking keen to buy, asking price, then walking out and see if they chase after you offering a lower price.

Angela Lansbury has been a resident of Singapore for more than ten years.

New Places In Singapore - Combine Two Safari Parks

Singapore's pioneering attraction is the Night Safari. Friends of min recently took this tour. They went round on the train twice and each time saw different animals. I've heard it said that fifty per cent or ninety per cent of animals/insects etc are nocturnal. (Please don't photograph your kitchen in Singapore at night. It's dreadful coming in to the kitchen and hearing rustling. A cockroach behind the waste bin disappears under the door.

In Greece we woke out night thinking a burglar was trying to climb through the curtains. It was an 'empty' chocolate wrapper on the windowsill.

 The lizard in your shoes which you kicked under your bed in the night. Always empty your shoes when trekking, in case of scorpions.

In Singapore one schoolgirl picked up her schoolbag in the morning and found, not a snake, but the skin in had discarded and left behind.

I am not keen on wildlife in a kitchen unless it is dead, chopped up, in a tin, cooked and eaten by somebody else, preferably earlier in the day. Not in my kitchen, theirs, in a public place such as a safari park. At least if you were approached by an escaped animal you could throw them your leftover lunch or dinner.

Most zoos and safari parks have an emergency plan for rounding up tourists and keeping them in a safe place. I always know the route back to the tourist shop and plot which tee-shirt to hide behind. Now I suppose you are wondering if I am serious or joking. A true word spoken in jest.

Near the Night Safari is the river/water/sea safari which shows you water creatures from different continents, such as the Amazon.

The two parks are nearby so you can go from one to the other, especially if you are on a cruise or flying by plane on a brief stopover.  

What's child friendly in Singapore? Any islands with beaches?

I was recently asked, 'What's child-friendly in Singapore? Are there any islands with beaches?

   Yes, Singapore is an island and there are lots of beach areas along the East Coast with nearby restaurants, cycle hire and other activities.

   On the south side of Singapore is a traffic free island called Sentosa. It's like a giant Disney park with a couple of hotels and lots of attractions. Look for all-inclusive tickets. You may want to go early in the day to get your moneys worth, have time for everything, and arrive in time for attractions which are fully booked, crowded or closing before you leave if you are staying late or staying overnight.

   A ferry ride takes you to the islands of Bintan or Batam, popular for weekends away. Take your passport.

   To make use of time in Singapore, go on the Night Safari and perhaps have dinner there. Check out bookings as you may be able to get a discount or a combined ticket with the Singapore Zoo or Bird Park. 

   To get an overview of the city, ride on one of the hop on hop off buses.

   Children would also like a boat trip. These range from a short trip along the river, an amphibious Duck vehicle tour, or a historic elaborate Chinese style ship for a day tour to a tiny island where you can hike to a temple, or a little motorboat which zooms off.

   Another idea is the equivalent of the London Eye, a giant wheel called the Singapore Flyer.

Discounts
Look for coupons on line and in the local free magazines and booklet you pick up at Changi airport on arrival. You sometimes get discounts with your airline ticket or hotel booking, and from maps in the hotel foyer, so check on these sources too. If you have time, check out the Singapore tourist boards websites and offices in the UK, Singapore and other countries in English or other languages.
   You might want to include Universal Studios.
   Look for a City Pass, Riverboat Pass, Sentosa Pass. You can buy tickets for one, two or three days.
Look for beaches and boats on sites about Bumboat tours, River cruises, Tripadvisor, and YouTube.