Singapore Zoo

Lonely Planet review

This zoo is world-class, and is constantly being upgraded. The zoo's showpiece animals include endangered white rhino, Bengal white tigers, polar bears, baboons and orang-utans. Wherever possible, moats replace bars, and the zoo is beautifully spread out over 28 hectares of lush greenery beside the Upper Seletar Reservoir.

Highlights are many - from the moment you step in to be greeted by free-ranging cotton-top tamarins and white-faced sakis and siamangs cavorting in the trees.

The baboon enclosure, a large sandy area with cliffs, a waterfall and a stream fashioned to look like the Ethiopian hinterland, is worth the entrance fee alone. Other primate areas also allow you to watch the likes of gibbons, the lively capuchins or proboscis monkeys, while the orang-utans, once marooned on a small island surrounded by gawping humans, have been cut loose and now get to hang around in the trees gawping down on the humans instead.

Another favourite is the Fragile Forest, a large netted dome where you'll have lemurs trotting across your path, flying foxes dangling by your head and hundreds of butterflies fluttering past your face.

Some shows, such as those at the Elephants of Asia and polar-bear enclosures, may be a little circus-like for some - and there has been particular controversy surrounding the keeping of polar bears in a hot equatorial climate.