The Bali Zoo doesn’t get rave reviews, but a fortnight ago we were facing serious difficulty finding children-appropriate activities to fill the last free day of our itinerary. The Zoo had a Breakfast with Orang Utans programme, so we opted for that on Day 6. The summary of it and the zoo itself? Mixed feelings.
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Bali Zoo is in the Gianyar district, and a short 30 minute drive from our villa in the early morning sans traffic – and slightly longer in the return trip as the roads got a little congested.
The Zoo seems to be broadly divided into two distinct areas, separated by a public road. Getting from the next requires you to board the zoo’s free shuttle bus, with the route taking just 2-3 minutes. The zoo is landscaped in the traditional Balinese style, very pretty: but the zoo itself seems rather modest in its collection of specimens.
The enclosures look like they can use some refurbishment too, though the souvenir shop, restaurant and also toilets (especially) are clean. The specimens themselves aren’t different from what we already find at the Singapore Zoo, the park we keep comparing other Zoos to. And perhaps unfairly, until you consider that the admission prices in Singapore are only slightly more expensive: SGD33 vs SGD31 in Bali. Simply put, the Singapore Zoo is in a completely different class: much larger, far more enclosures and varied specimens, round the clock activities.
That leaves just the Bali Zoo’s breakfast event to notch a few needed stars in a head-on comparison. And that, unfortunately, was also wanting. Just to get it out of the way too: the event name is misleading: you’re not actually eating with Orang Utans: you’re having a buffet breakfast, and the Orang Utans are at one edge of the restaurant strutting around and doing their stuff.
More seriously and maybe it’s a matter of mismatched expectations, but I simply didn’t expect the event to be this crowded. The event is organized at the north-part of the Zoo (according to the zoo map that is), and the first sign that this wasn’t going to be a small, semi-private event was when I saw the venue: a fairly large restaurant that can sit hundreds. We also thought we would had been the first to arrive, reaching the venue at 7:45AM – but there were already about a dozen guests there already dining. In the next two hours, more and more guests arrived – and my conservative guestimate is that there were around 80 or so people crowding the area. Ling quipped that it’s totally mass-market. Thankfully, the breakfast event guests were all well behaved, and comprised mostly westerners i.e. not from a certain country up north known for rowdy and loud behavior.
The relatively better bit is the interaction with animals at breakfast. The two elephants were very gentle and welcomed the baskets of fruit that guests can buy to hand feed them. Of the two Orang Utans, one was fairly quiet and contend to just perch and be fed treats while the keeper cajoled him to join guests for photos. The other fellow was very jovial, and over the next 90 minutes, stole caps, food, glasses, pens, and even tried to raid his keeper’s bag for more trinklets. The Zoo also brought out other supporting members in its cast: including a lovely porcupine who had everybody Oooohing-Aaahing at its cuteness, several colorful parrots, and a pangolin.
The deer park at the entrance was also fun, especially if you buy packets of food. They all instantly crowd around, and it’s quite a sight. Reminds me of the deer park in Nara.
The main Zoo itself opens at 9:30AM, and from 10AM the crowds descended – or specifically hundreds of local kids on school-trips. By the time we left at about 12:30PM, the carpark was congested with tour buses.
I’d thought that the zoo was also wholly smoking-free, and there are several signs that clearly state that. But there were park guests puffing away without care.
Finally, and this has little to do with the Zoo itself: we didn’t like the driver engaged by the Zoo to pick us up from the villa and back. Not in his driving skills – all the Balinese drivers we’ve had this trip have mad skills – but in his attitude. At the start, he was very friendly and identified himself as an independent driver the Zoo had appointed to drive us. But immediately thereafter and for both the journey to and back, he kept touting his services to get us to engage him for the rest of the day, the rest of the days in the itinerary, and even the transfer to airport at the end of the trip. This fellow just didn’t get the hint when we told him pointedly and very politely that we already have programmes arranged for the rest of the itinerary, and drivers booked. Importantly, his attitude had a 180 degree turn after he concluded that we were not going to engage him, and became curt. I was about to write at the end of this blog series that every Balinese we met was unfailing polite, but this fellow has now made that claim impossible.
Very mixed feelings then. The Zoo itself isn’t really very good, the breakfast event was crowded, the participating animals at the event were fun, and the whole package was pretty expensive at SGD205. Go only if you have money to burn + time so spare.
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