Melaka, Malaysia

As a side trip to get away from the glitz of Singapore, we embarked on a bus tour to historic Melaka.



Once a port to the Dutch, Portuguese and British, the town is now vying for the tourist dollar. There were ubiquitous trishaws looking for passengers around every corner. Seeing how the petite Chinese tourists were fitting 2 to a trishaw, we both tried to squeeze our 'robust' frames into one, much to the amusement of the owner till he realised that he'd have to pedal such a large combined weight. In the end a second trishaw came to our aid and off we went.



Part of our tour included a stop at a Taoist temple where people were coming to pay their respects to their forebears as part of the Lunar New Year. The historic Jonkers street was filled with anachronisms. Motorbike repair shops and traditional flour mills next to small batik tailors and shops of hand made pastries.




Unsuccessfully posing for a photo



With the intent of travelling light, all I packed was the 18-200mm which was a shame given the ornate detail in the carvings at the temple. Also trying some different post processing as the light was very diffuse and overcast.

Singapore Zoo - Wow!

It's pretty easy to think "Zoo - Ho Hum", but Singapore Zoo is one of those world class zoos that should not be missed. It's a great experience for both adults and kids a like.


This is one seriously happy elephant!



The enclosures help showcase the animals and the actual scheduled shows such as the elephants at work and play have a strong message about the plight of endangered species.



There are also free roaming enclosures where you can get very close to lemurs and enormous butterflies.



The cheeky orangutan here is reaching to snaffle some chippies much to the annoyance of the keepers.




Oh to be a monkey.

Breakfast with Orangutans - Singapore Zoo

Breakfast with the Orangutans was a unique and fantastic experience to get up close to these creatures and was worth every cent.



There were several of our forrest chums who came down to eat with us including a little imp who was not camera shy.

ZOMG! Talk about the proverbial mountain of tourists taking photos and blocking the view for the rest of us (though I did partake - but at a modest distance with my 200mm). Most annoyingly were the would-be camera buffs eyeballing each other to see who had the biggest lens and blatting away at 9fps on a stationary ape?! Seriously how many photos do you need? I bet you they just bought their cameras downtown the day before and were shooting skywards at the animals in a strong backlit scene. I hope all they got was some verdant green foliage photos with a big black orangutan sillhouette. I didn't see a single one stop to check their exposures and adjust. SIGH they must just be better photographers than me.

The smarter ones were standing back and picking their shots and eating. So to all adult camera nerds, take yer photo and get out of the way, the kids can't see. Enough ranting.





In my meager handful of photos (at the behest of stuffing my face with delicious breakfast), I waited and got the photo I wanted. HELLO BOYS!

Jurong Bird Park - Singapore

A holiday with no laptop whilst infinitely more enjoyable means a dang lot more processing at home. Time to start the sifting of 400+ photos from our two weeks in Singapore. These posts will be more of a highlights reel, starting with the Jurong Bird Park.

After no success haggling for a teleconvertor with the surly proprietors of camera shops in Sim Lim Square with Chris N, we hit the bird park and the new 70-200mm was proving it's worth and taking everything in its stride.


(remember what I said - "don't make eye contact with the tourists")



It was great to see some very well trained birds strutting their stuff at the shows, particularly the hornbills and the vulture that got thrown at our heads.





Lorakeet feed was the highlight with too much time being spent feeding these monsters and getting pooped on.Thanks to Chris N for hanging out with us.