Before we went into Underwater World at Sentosa last Saturday, we passed by a group of peacocks that were hanging out on a grassy knoll. This area is situated on the other side of a drainage ditch from a sitting area where people eat. The drainage ditch is very small, so the peacocks go back and forth, begging for food.
Closer to the entrance to Underwater World we saw another peacock strutting its stuff on the road.
In the same area we saw some monkey business. Literally.
Seeing peacocks on Sentosa was nothing new to me. It’s neat, but I’d seen one there on my last trip. It was in the sitting area of a cafe on the upper part of the island, looking for hand-outs.
The monkeys were what really excited me. My wife has told me a story a few times about how she saw monkeys in the trees around the Bedok Reservoir. I always listened attentively because it’s so unusual to think that there might be monkeys hanging out in the neighborhood park. In the US the only place you’re going to see monkeys is in a zoo. We went to Bedok Reservoir a few times and I always kept my camera ready, just in case, but I never got lucky with seeing them there.
I was really excited when I spotted the monkey sitting on the sign so I walked over and took a photo. Then I noticed the monkey up in the tree. I’m not sure if there’s anything in that plastic bag he’s carrying. Maybe it smelled of food. Before long I spotted another monkey off to the left. Then I saw a baby monkey in the tree above a sign for Fort Siloso.
The locals, and those who seemed to be from this area, walked on by as if it were nothing special, but almost all of the Caucasian people stopped to take photos. I suppose it’s just a matter of what you’re used to seeing in the woods around your house. Perhaps the locals would stop if they saw a stag? There’s nothing entertaining or interesting to me about a deer, but maybe they would think it was interesting because it was unusual to them.
Bradley Farless 