Back with quick run-through of this weekend:
Saturday (05/07)
I had to sort out a few things in the morning but decided afterwards that I would try and see the two remaining Mandai parks (plus BP a second time) on that day. It was, as ever, fairly hot but at least the sun wasn't out as much. Anyway, here goes.
Rainforest Wild Asia
I have absolutely no clue what to think about this place. It's honestly a pretty weird concept for the most part, interspersed with world class exhibits, immersion and also a smattering of not so great stuff. Zooish and honeybadger among others have posted great exhibit photos already, so would advise to refer to those for some visual aid.
As a brief summary, the idea behind the park as far as I can tell is to have one circular elevated boardwalk that as a loop around the zoo, and then at the ground level a series of trails in the forest. Most enclosures are viewable from either or. I like this idea I think, I know some people were complaining about it being a little muddy at the bottom, but generally I thought the idea worked well.
Another thing that was excellently executed was, big surprise, the primate exhibitry. In probably the singular best primate exhibit I've every seen you have siamang, douc and javan langur (apparently mixed, though this might be a clever illusion, plus Philippine spotted deer at the ground level) in some of the tallest trees I have ever seen. It's glorious. Siamangs vocalising at the summit of those trees, doucs closer to the boardwalk, deer at the bottom and so on. Lovely experience, great stuff. Up there with the best primate exhibits I've ever seen, and a bunch of those are at another Mandai park incidentally...
Another thing that was astonishingly well executed was the cave. I've been lucky enough to go into some pretty incredible caves in my life - this was an entirely fake cave and yet it completely looks the part to be honest. You go in, there's immediately a couple of pools for Soro brook carp and Cave blind fish (didn't notice this in there but maybe the only species not actually found in Asia). Then follows a pretty long stretch of cave with pretty much nothing, which is an experience in itself to be honest. There are off-shoots for pretty huge areas for Cave racer snakes, the largest Asian forest scorpion exhibit ever (with a UV light to make them glow) and so on. It's excellent, a great experience, and fantastic for photos as well. There's also viewing over the neighbouring crocodile bridge, which is also great, by the by. I wish it was Rainforest Wild Eurasia so they could import some olms
. As ever, it's pretty much incomparable to other such exhibits I've seen - Osnabrueck's underground exhibit is ridiculously good but not on the same scale, nor with the same huge investment in cave realism. The amount of educational material on not just the cave wildlife but also the geology of the caves themselves is astounding.
However, I'm a bit puzzled by the rest of the park. In the bottom corner of the zoo, for most people the first thing they see is the Karst mountains area. This is modelled after regions of Vietnam etc where you'd find Delacour's langur for example (not sure if the langur-karst thing extends to other species or locales actually?). Anyway, the investment on this area must have been huge. The karst mountains are replicated pretty nicely, and visitors essentially loop around this lower central karst peak on an island on their own karst mountain-side area via a bunch of boardwalks, staircases and swing bridges. It's pretty hard to describe but here's a photo (courtesy @Nadchew_ ) to better explain. So the vast majority of the actual Karst bit is the visitor area, and the langur exhibit is viewable from all sides and most angles.
While the exhibit maybe lacks a little bit of privacy, the weirder thing for me was nothing to do with it - there's a whole climbing trail thing around the karst mountain that you can do for a extra fee. It was relatively popular I think by the looks, but I wonder how profitable it actually is given all the extra cost to making the karsts and the numerous staff employed to even run it at all. It's an interesting concept, but I wonder what came first - was it the 'let's make a langur karst exhibit' or 'let's fit in a climbing activity somewhere' and the langurs were a thought later down the line? I honestly have no clue - the climbing route is pretty extensive and looks really fun, but also kind of odd to be climbing and abseiling right next to people visiting the zoo. Remains to be seen whether other places will adopt such ideas. That sort of thing isn't limited to that area - there's also a bungee jump somewhere else in the zoo too, and some trampoline area too. I have no idea what to think about this, I find it weird and kind of innovative and tailored to a good chunk of their visitor-ship all at the same time. Would love to hear other people's thoughts.
The rest of the zoo is mostly fairly typical rainforest exhibits, with above average signage + educational material for the most part (although there was Luzon hornbill unsigned in the myna-pheasant aviary if I'm not mistaken). I wasn't a huge fan of the tiger exhibit, but objectively it seems fairly good, and this goes for most of the other exhibits really. Tortoises are in excellent quarters and babirusa similarly. One of the sun bear exhibits seemed a little small - I really wish they applied a similar approach with their carnivores to that with their primates at Mandai, but I guess it's seen as unnecessary risk, and carnivores are also less likely to show.
The one concern I have is the Malayan tapir exhibit. I really don't think it's very good at all. I was really surprised by this. Most of the rest of the park is of a high standard, with bits that are outstanding, but these couple of exhibits are poor. There's zero privacy, especially for one that is viewable from every side and the tapir was squished into the wall both times I passed where it was least visible. For a pretty shy animal, and a brand new zoo, it was inexplicably bad, especially when you see the standard set by the rest of the place.
In summary, how does it compare to the other Mandai parks? It's better than River Safari for me, but that'll be in a later post. Bird Paradise is by far the best Mandai park for me, upon revisit, but also beforehand *. And for the other two it's a bit of a toss-up, but the experience at Night Safari is largely unrivalled. So tentatively BP > NS > SZ = RWA > RW. I really wonder what Singaporean members think though, as those are all single visits for now except BP. Would love to hear opinions on Rainforest Wild Asia.
* A little note on this, my BP revisit was great because I got to spend a lot more time in the largest aviaries, go on all the paths and so on. I think Heart of Africa might be the best single aviary in the world, and is the best single zoo exhibit I've ever seen I reckon. Genuinely stunning, cannot recommend it highly enough.
Saturday (05/07)
I had to sort out a few things in the morning but decided afterwards that I would try and see the two remaining Mandai parks (plus BP a second time) on that day. It was, as ever, fairly hot but at least the sun wasn't out as much. Anyway, here goes.
Rainforest Wild Asia
I have absolutely no clue what to think about this place. It's honestly a pretty weird concept for the most part, interspersed with world class exhibits, immersion and also a smattering of not so great stuff. Zooish and honeybadger among others have posted great exhibit photos already, so would advise to refer to those for some visual aid.
As a brief summary, the idea behind the park as far as I can tell is to have one circular elevated boardwalk that as a loop around the zoo, and then at the ground level a series of trails in the forest. Most enclosures are viewable from either or. I like this idea I think, I know some people were complaining about it being a little muddy at the bottom, but generally I thought the idea worked well.
Another thing that was excellently executed was, big surprise, the primate exhibitry. In probably the singular best primate exhibit I've every seen you have siamang, douc and javan langur (apparently mixed, though this might be a clever illusion, plus Philippine spotted deer at the ground level) in some of the tallest trees I have ever seen. It's glorious. Siamangs vocalising at the summit of those trees, doucs closer to the boardwalk, deer at the bottom and so on. Lovely experience, great stuff. Up there with the best primate exhibits I've ever seen, and a bunch of those are at another Mandai park incidentally...
Another thing that was astonishingly well executed was the cave. I've been lucky enough to go into some pretty incredible caves in my life - this was an entirely fake cave and yet it completely looks the part to be honest. You go in, there's immediately a couple of pools for Soro brook carp and Cave blind fish (didn't notice this in there but maybe the only species not actually found in Asia). Then follows a pretty long stretch of cave with pretty much nothing, which is an experience in itself to be honest. There are off-shoots for pretty huge areas for Cave racer snakes, the largest Asian forest scorpion exhibit ever (with a UV light to make them glow) and so on. It's excellent, a great experience, and fantastic for photos as well. There's also viewing over the neighbouring crocodile bridge, which is also great, by the by. I wish it was Rainforest Wild Eurasia so they could import some olms
. As ever, it's pretty much incomparable to other such exhibits I've seen - Osnabrueck's underground exhibit is ridiculously good but not on the same scale, nor with the same huge investment in cave realism. The amount of educational material on not just the cave wildlife but also the geology of the caves themselves is astounding. However, I'm a bit puzzled by the rest of the park. In the bottom corner of the zoo, for most people the first thing they see is the Karst mountains area. This is modelled after regions of Vietnam etc where you'd find Delacour's langur for example (not sure if the langur-karst thing extends to other species or locales actually?). Anyway, the investment on this area must have been huge. The karst mountains are replicated pretty nicely, and visitors essentially loop around this lower central karst peak on an island on their own karst mountain-side area via a bunch of boardwalks, staircases and swing bridges. It's pretty hard to describe but here's a photo (courtesy @Nadchew_ ) to better explain. So the vast majority of the actual Karst bit is the visitor area, and the langur exhibit is viewable from all sides and most angles.
While the exhibit maybe lacks a little bit of privacy, the weirder thing for me was nothing to do with it - there's a whole climbing trail thing around the karst mountain that you can do for a extra fee. It was relatively popular I think by the looks, but I wonder how profitable it actually is given all the extra cost to making the karsts and the numerous staff employed to even run it at all. It's an interesting concept, but I wonder what came first - was it the 'let's make a langur karst exhibit' or 'let's fit in a climbing activity somewhere' and the langurs were a thought later down the line? I honestly have no clue - the climbing route is pretty extensive and looks really fun, but also kind of odd to be climbing and abseiling right next to people visiting the zoo. Remains to be seen whether other places will adopt such ideas. That sort of thing isn't limited to that area - there's also a bungee jump somewhere else in the zoo too, and some trampoline area too. I have no idea what to think about this, I find it weird and kind of innovative and tailored to a good chunk of their visitor-ship all at the same time. Would love to hear other people's thoughts.
The rest of the zoo is mostly fairly typical rainforest exhibits, with above average signage + educational material for the most part (although there was Luzon hornbill unsigned in the myna-pheasant aviary if I'm not mistaken). I wasn't a huge fan of the tiger exhibit, but objectively it seems fairly good, and this goes for most of the other exhibits really. Tortoises are in excellent quarters and babirusa similarly. One of the sun bear exhibits seemed a little small - I really wish they applied a similar approach with their carnivores to that with their primates at Mandai, but I guess it's seen as unnecessary risk, and carnivores are also less likely to show.
The one concern I have is the Malayan tapir exhibit. I really don't think it's very good at all. I was really surprised by this. Most of the rest of the park is of a high standard, with bits that are outstanding, but these couple of exhibits are poor. There's zero privacy, especially for one that is viewable from every side and the tapir was squished into the wall both times I passed where it was least visible. For a pretty shy animal, and a brand new zoo, it was inexplicably bad, especially when you see the standard set by the rest of the place.
In summary, how does it compare to the other Mandai parks? It's better than River Safari for me, but that'll be in a later post. Bird Paradise is by far the best Mandai park for me, upon revisit, but also beforehand *. And for the other two it's a bit of a toss-up, but the experience at Night Safari is largely unrivalled. So tentatively BP > NS > SZ = RWA > RW. I really wonder what Singaporean members think though, as those are all single visits for now except BP. Would love to hear opinions on Rainforest Wild Asia.
* A little note on this, my BP revisit was great because I got to spend a lot more time in the largest aviaries, go on all the paths and so on. I think Heart of Africa might be the best single aviary in the world, and is the best single zoo exhibit I've ever seen I reckon. Genuinely stunning, cannot recommend it highly enough.
