Today was the day where the Andre lab gets treated to lunch by Jenn and i (on behalf of CanFel). Though i was hoping to take the lab out to dinner, lunch worked better for everyone's schedule, and, since they had an expert in Indian food in the group, it was to be Indian Buffet. Wow, and what a meal it was. i am weak in the face of basmati rice (cooked to a perfect degree of dryness so that each grain remains separate but each grain is yielding and sweet) and things to pour over it. So, when faced with an Indian Buffet, i often end up comatose for the next two or three hours after. i just have to remember to not snore.
The food was fantastic and the flavours were intense. We were at the River Walk Tandoor restaurant by the, well, river. The buffet selection was a good variety of vegetarian Indian dishes, the stand out for me being the sag paneer (spinach and cottage cheese).
So very fresh in flavor and the cheese just on the side of squeaky (as i love) and such a welcomed texture and milk flavor addition to the dish. They also had a lovely lentil curry that was absolutely delectable. For meat, they had a great Mutton dish... i don't believe it was a Rogan Josh, possibly a Rezala? but it was in a deep dark brown sauce with a little bit of heat running through but laced full of spices. It binds the rice together and makes for wonderful bites. There was also a fish curry which i wanted to try but simply ran out of room from being distracted by the tandoori chicken. My, what a tandoori chicken. After the meal, as if i wasn't filled to the gills, i entered the "Sugar Ball" challenge proposed by one of Andre's team members Leung. The sugar balls are, in fact, gulab jamun. The River Walk Tandoor has one of the best i have ever had! Gulab jamun is one of my favourite of all Indian desserts though it is tooth achingly sweet, each gulab jamun milk based fried balls having been soaked to saturation in the heavy sticky syrup.
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| The lab and the group... why do i feel like uttering "Hodor" over and over again? |
i was told, or i thought i was told, that the record stands at 11, and that record was held by Leung. So my plan going in was to stop at 11 (i can eat this forever or till my pancreas explodes, whichever event precedes the others) and then raise the flag of surrender, putting the competition into at least a tie or losing it completely. Unfortunately, it turns out, Leung only managed 5. So i won. Heh. It was delicious though. And sadly, i probably could have kept on eating, but man, would i be in bad shape today from all that concentrated sugar!
That lunch pretty much took care of my food intake requirements for the day. For the evening, we finally had a chance to visit the fabled Singapore Night Safari!!
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| Night Safari Singapore... FIRE!!! |
Jennie had mentioned this venue for so long (it houses the originating strain that begot her beloved Bengal cats) and we've been trying to go but for the dinners that (oh poor me) we had to attend. It turns out that the Night Safari was quite a popular destination for locals and visitors alike! The park opens from 7:15PM to midnight. There are four available waves of admittance, 7:15, 8:15, 9:15, and 10:15. By the time we got there at 7:15, the only tickets available was for the 9:15 entry. However, it seems that they had anticipated this event, as, between the ticket booths and the entry gate, there is a cluster of restaurants and shops to entertain any visitor and satisfy their wants. Not only that, as the folks queue up for entry, there is even a side entertainment of fire eaters "from the dark and mysterious jungles of... blah blah blah" (i forget their taped intro... suffice it to say that they are topless, well muscled and at least one is well oiled and gleaming) to keep diners and queue standees enthralled.
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| Great Ball of Fire!! |
So, we took the time and ate, well, Jenn ate, i photographed and incubated by Indian food baby from lunch and mostly lurched from point A to B. The fire eaters were actually quite entertaining. The whole "suspended fireball" trick was pretty cool until you realized that they were keeping the fireball suspended by a fine spray of fuel from their mouths... so make sure you are not "down range". When it came our time to enter the Night Safari, we then began to gleam the process of the Safari experience. The park consists of 4 interlinked walking trails that essentially will criss cross the path the Safari Tram will take. The walking paths will allow you greater access to animals that you see from the driving tram as well as enclosures that are obscured from the driving tram. Being novices, we decide to tram it first and then walk it. i was also optimistic that my camera would be able to capture the denizens of the safari in the night light. Well... i was wrong. They took great pains in making sure that the residents of the Night Safari -- everyone a nocturnal animal -- will not be forced to endure lighting uncommon to that of a bright evening. The camera's auto-focus function was absolutely useless. i changed the lens to a manual focus setting instead and was satisfied with 1 out of every 6 photos being properly focused (it is hard to focus in the dar when everything blends into black).
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| Cloud Leopard |
We also decided to leave the tram at the first stop when it became clear that the two women with their sons (one per woman) was not keen on curbing their young boy's behaviours and it was going to be an awfully long tram ride. Getting off the tram was the best decision we made. We traipsed across the Leoplard and the Aquati Cats Trail and were quite happy. The first enclosure we came upon housed three (i think three) Cloud Leopards. Beautiful cats. Not very large, probably the size of a large house cat but so much more well muscled and possibly longer. As we waited for a good photo op, a group of Mainland Chinese tourists came up to the enclosure and, one member of the group, finding the enclosure empty, decided to pound on the glass to better draw out whatever is housed within. In the dark, i couldn't tell their ethnicity, so i barked at him in English to stop pounding on the bloody glass (he stopped), but i wish i would've done so in Chinese so that he understand exactly how much of a shit head he is.
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| Asiatic Lions at play |
God, i hate my fellow Asian travellers sometimes. Anyhow, they left and the Cloud Leopard came back and i managed to get at least one good shot of one of the cats before his/her buddies showed up and they went chasing each other into the vegetation like our cats Macintosh and Darwin. Up the trail from the Cloud Leopards was an over watch into the open air enclosure of the Asiatic Lions. We saw these beautiful cats from the tram but it was difficult to photograph. Here, stationary and with ample time, i again, managed to get at least one good photo of two Asiatic Lions playing, We then turned onto the Fishing Cat Trail and, possibly making a wrong turn, entered the Asian Golden Cat enclosure. The glassed in enclosure was very dimly lit. The colour scheme running through was in the family of brown to dark brown. The Asian Golden Cats? Well, they are "Golden" or brown/dark brown. Luckily for us, the two cats in the enclosure were doing what cats do best, sleeping. i finally found one that was sleeping on a branch and Jenn found the other laying by a stump watching dispassionately at us. So cat like!
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| Let sleeping Asian Golden Cats lie... |
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| Spotted Hyena |
Wandering along down the trail, we then came across the Spotted Hyena enclosure. There were two Hyenas in view, one was in repose, looking around lazily, the other was patrolling the perimeter, working its way through a set of stations that only it knows, i was very pleased when i check my cameras that i had a good photo of the patrolling Hyena. It was a very exciting moment as i savored that photo and deleted the other 10 or 15 bad, blurry, shots. Thank god for SD cards. i won't be able to afford the film that i would have gone through. A series of bird sanctuaries were next on our trail before we found ourselves in front of the Small Toothed Civet. The two Civets that were out were sitting with their backs to the Safari guests and looked attentively at a spot overhead. We also saw another Civit sitting on top of the rook in a enclosure building. The Civet gave way to a group of very yelpy and loud Small Clawed Otters, who knew that their cries were yipes? Finally we arrived at the enclosure of the Asian Fishing Cat. Appropriately, as we waked up, one such cat was perched on a log next to the stream containing fish. He was absolutely focused on the task at hand and, right after i photographed him, he lunged into the water. However, he came back empty handed, shook off the water quickly and walked back across the well vegetated area and disappeared into the brush.
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| Small-toothed Civet, what are they looking at? |
Following his path, we were able to spot a second cat sitting amongst foliage looking quizzically at the gawking visitors. The viewing of the fishing cats capped our night. Besides, my tee shirt was soaked through with sweat from the humidity in the air. Hot and steamy but quite a lot of fun indeed!
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| Small Clawed Otters |
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| Asian Fishing Cat, waiting in ambush |
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| Asian Fishing Cat, thinking "silly humans"? |
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