The Far East Coasters: Do Not Feed the Monkeys- MacRitchie Reservoir (A belated post)

While all of our friends in America were celebrating their American-ness over Memorial Day we attempted to celebate Buddha's birthday with our own three day weekend. There is great dissent in Asia over the actual day of Buddha's birth, with different countries celebrating it at different times- which sort of takes the fun out of it. Oh yea, and we are not Buddhist- which also takes the fun out of it. But, we are never going to poo-poo a free day off work. We originally planned to bounce off to the nether regions of Australia in search of kangaroos, but work intervened- so after my dear husband pulled his first overnighter at work, we set out to entertain ourselves in Singapore. And since all normal Singaporeans and expats get the hell out of town on long weekends, we basically had the city to ourselves.

To be fair, the entertainment options in Singapore are minimal, but since we haven't had much time to explore the island yet- there are quite a few things on our to-do list. At the top of this list was a "hike" in MacRitchie Reservoir. The draw for Dave was a very neat canopy walk over a suspension bridge in the jungle- and for me it was the potential for monkeys, of course. One serious flaw in the Singapore transportation system is that most of the nature spots, parks and reserves and the like, are not easily accessible to those with out cars. I suppose this gives it a feeling of being set off from the hustle and bustle- but this is only an illusion, since the imposing skyline of downtown and the many soaring towers of the prolific residential skyscrapers can be seen from practically any vantage in the island. It struck me as odd to take a taxi to a nature reserve, but taxi we did.

Arriving at MacRitchie

Rules of the park. I particularly like the no grabbing birds.

And this one.

I really like the explanation in #3. I might have otherwise been confused.

The reservoir is beautiful, and if you look in certain directions, you can almost forget that you are in fact in the middle of the city. The national championship of canoeing was happening when we showed up, which we can only assume is the same thing as the city championships (city-state), which makes it ever so slightly less exciting.

We set out for the Tree Top Walk- which we were kindly reminded by repeated signs, was brought to us by the good folks at HSBC, who never miss an opportunity to self promote- even in the rain forest.

The walk in the forest was great- it was nice to be outside- an occurrence which happens rather infrequently for us due to a passionate aversion to the overwhelming heat- and since we were under tree cover most of the time- it was not quite so scorching, although still plenty humid.

Little friend we saw along the way up.

We eventually approached what- to two corporate crusaders with declining physical fitness resulting from long hours in rolly chairs indoors- can be called a frigging massive hill. We attempted to channel our strength from times past when we actually had time to work out- and began the assent. Dave quickly realized that his only chance was to keep moving since if he stopped, he might not be able to get going again. We had a flash back to people we had passed earlier pushing a stroller in the opposite direction and thought that surely they must have seen this monster hill and decided that the tree top walk was going to have to wait until Jr. could walk himself up there to see it. A little out of breath we made it to the top- only to be faced with some pretty serious downward stairs. Did I really huff and puff my way up here to have to go down stairs?

It turned out that having to face my own athletic inabilities on the hill and subsequent stairs would be worth it when we arrived at the HSBC Tree Top Walk, which we had only to share with one other adventurous couple. The bridge is really sturdy feeling given that it is a suspension bridge hovering 25 metres above the ground. We don't have any idea what a metre is, crazy European measuring, but we know the bridge was high.

Looking down off the bridge.

View from the bridge.

We saw the sights and feeling exhilarated left the bridge only to realize that we what laid ahead was a never ending set of stairs. And I really do mean never ending. What seems like hours later, the stair madness ended and nearly flat ground was ours again. At which point we came to a observation tower. I thought- well, we just saw the whole damn rain forest from the bridge, why would feel compelled to hike more stairs to see it again? But my husband felt a deep rooted need to climb more stairs for a dramatic view of more trees. With my legs thoroughly beat, and a thunderstorm looming in the distance- we pushed to cover the last 4k with visions of the headquarters cafe dancing on our heads. Nearly exhausted, sweating profusely and already bemoaning how sore we were going to be the next day- we were put to shame by the plethora of runners calmly jogging towards us and past us on the rocky bumpy trail. Even small children ran past us. Its really good for my self esteem to get left in the dirt by a 10 year old girl.

It is lovely.

Like I said, of the big draws of MacRitchie- besides the simple chance to get out of the city grind- was the promise of Monkeys. And monkeys we found. Lots of them. Lots of very cute baby monkeys. And not the least bit bothered by the hikers.

After a wonderful, albeit exhausting hike, we eventually stumbled in to the cafe at the entrance to the park, downed multiple bottles of water and then like any good city residents, hailed ourselves a taxi back to reality.