Sunday August 6th

The weather was getting back at his normal rate, hot and humid, so today was an excellent day to visit the Safari Park nearby. Because there are no Clifford busses towards it, we had to take a taxi. When we approached the taxi stand, a handful of drivers came to us, but as experienced customers, we stayed calm and took just the one with the best price. It was 40 RMB one trip (8 km) and if you compare it to the bus to Guangzhou (more than 8 km, 14 RMB one trip), it’s expensive to take a taxi here. In Guangzhou center they are much cheaper. But for those 40 RMB we got good service and where dropped just in front of the entrance.

The Safari Park consisted of two areas: Safari on Wheels and Safari on Foot. We started with the Safari on Wheels, where a Tourist Train takes you trough the whole area. You can also do this trip with your own car for only 6 euro. But then it’s more like standing in a traffic-jam with on both sides wild animals. And hysterical kids in the back seat. So we saw all kinds of animals in their “natural” environment.

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Afterwards, we did the Safari on foot, which was actually like walking trough a zoo. A Chinese zoo, not to be mistaking. A lot of people will know that my weak spot are animals, and so it was kind of hard sometimes to see them in certain conditions. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of animals where having a good time here, but some things where just way over the top. And that with endangered species… I’m not going to tell everything that disturbed me, but I’ll just show the pictures. Have in mind that the tiger, the (white) Siberian tiger, the Giant Panda and the Oerang Oetan are highly endangered species and that many things you can see on these pictures are forbidden in Europe. But not in China.

White Siberian Tiger, on a leash for pictures with tourists.
Flamingo’s

Ara's

Ibis birds

Koala’s

Asian Elephants

Baby Siberian and Bengal Tigers in the nursery home.

This pictures cost 20 RMB.

Also in the nursery home, baby Black bears.

White Tiger show.

Dressed monkey show.

Oerang Oetan.

So in the park we saw a lot of animals, very special animals, and also some not so nice things. A lot of visitors were trowing food to the animals, even when it was not allowed and even cookies still in their wrapping. A lot of animals were used to stand on pictures with the (paying) visitor. Btw, the two shows that we have seen are things that are forbidden in Europe, certainly with these two endangered species. But still, in the end, we had a good visit and we saw a lot of animals that we never saw before..

In the evening we went (finally) swimming. The swimming pool in the resort center is a big outside pool, the only disadvantage was that the deepest spot was only 1,40m deep. But the water was cool and refreshing.

At home we catched Tomb Raider the Cradle of Life (movie of the month on Pearl TV, they were making publicity for this movie since we arrived here…) and we had a lot of “been there, done that” moments, because the movie was mostly situated in Hong Kong and Shanghai.