Singapore Zoo…photo share

This was our third visit to Singapore Zoo and it did not disappoint.  We headed to the zoo early so we could enjoy a buffet breakfast with the Orang utans which was awesome as always. I bought a 3 park pass for the Zoo, River Safari and Night Safari and then had my concierge at the hotel ring to book breakfast and I just paid on arrival because it was cheaper that way for us.  You can do a tour where you get breakfast and your zoo entry if that suits you better. 

I have blogged about the zoo before and you can read my posts here and here. so I thought today I would just do a photo share of our latest visit.

You can also find information about the zoo on their website, link here.

Emma and Nathan both enjoyed holding the snakes at breakfast.

And the high light of breakfast is when these gorgeous animals arrive and hang around for a while. 

The baby was just to die for, super super cute!

 The zoo has plenty of monkeys etc. 

A garden train?

The water park was a refreshing stop for the kids.

The Komodo dragon is Emma's favourite animal at the zoo, go figure.

You get to walk through this enclosure and get really up close and personal with the chameleons and other animals.

We were just walking along the path when I looked up to see this guy and his big branch hanging above me.

Rhino bottoms!

This meerkat could see something up there although we couldn't!

The kids both got to feed the giraffes, another high light (we paid a $5 fee for the food).

And a calming boat ride from one end of the zoo to the other was a welcome respite from walking (we paid a fee for this too).

Singapore has just an amazing zoo, a definite must do when in Singapore!

An amazing day with the elephants in Pattaya, Thailand

During our cruise stop in Thailand we spent a day at an elephant village which was an unforgettable experience.  You can find the website here.  We arrived at about 10am and left at 3pm so we had lots of hours with the animals.  

We first had an elephant ride through water and bush.  Emma and I went first.  I have to say that riding an elephant is not a very comfortable ride, it's really bumpy and whenever I tried to take a photo it was fail due to the movement.

When we got to the other end of our ride we were given quite a bit of time to just pat and feed the elephants. We bought bananas for them at the entrance.  A treat they really love.  The elephant that walked behind us could smell Emma's bananas and keep nudging her with her trunk so she could have one!  Nathan's driver let him back on the elephant to feed it from above. I will also say that elephant's slobber and Emma and I ended up with quite a bit of it on us!

Then we went for a walk through some bush to find out about what the locals do and how they live.  We saw silk worms and a lady making thai silk by hand.

We got to go on this boat which then took us to the other side of the river.  It was just set up on a thick rope which the men wind by hand to move you to the other side.

Once on the other side of the river, these guys below were our transport back to the elephant village.  We sat in wooden carriages with wooden wheels.  It was an awesome experience, we loved it.  

After all that was done we had a really delicious lunch and then had a good hour to hang out with the elephants again.  You could pat them, feed them or just sit and watch them.  The kids had a ball, I don't think they will ever get this much time with elephants again so we took full advantage of it.

To finish the day we had a talk about the elephants.  We learned so much about how they get to be at the village and the work they used to do.  The elephants show all their skills including an old circus elephant who showed us what she could do including picking up 10c coins with her trunk!

And to finish I had to give this gorgeous little one some apples and a big cuddle, he was absolutely gorgeous/

 If you are going to Pattaya a trip to the elephants is a really good day.

Motorbikes Motorbikes Everywhere…Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

We visited Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in Vietnam for just two days.  I was blown away by the amount of motorbikes, mopeds, scooters that were everywhere!  I think we were lucky because one of our days was a weekend so the traffic was much reduced and it was easier to cross the road etc.

I just thought I would show some photos from our time here of the local transport.  

Who needs a delivery truck, car or ute?  No one in Ho Chi Minh city. These were the things I saw people carrying on their two wheel transport in the 10 minutes I spent waiting for my car to pick me up.

A large pot plant.  These guys actually came past twice.

A flat screen T.V.

Boxes, boxes, lots of boxes.

shopping, lots of it.

Furniture?  I'm not really sure what this is.

A food selling cart.

And we saw lots and lots of families (4 or more people) getting around this way too.

And when you walk along the street you can see motorbikes parked along the street for the whole length of the road.

Seeing so much traffic and the way the Vietnamese use these vehicles to accommodate pretty much all their transport needs was just amazing and eye opening.