Butterfly & Reptile Sanctuary, Malacca

We reached the Butterfly& Reptile Sanctuary at 4.30pm. The sun was ready to show it's face again and was peeping in between the white clouds. The grey-coloured clouds got shooed away by the winds above and only evidence that it rained not too long ago was the damp ground.

We were greeted by this beautiful tall butterfly-carved wood tower.

The entrance to the Butterfly & Reptile Sanctuary. The entrance fees was RM6 for adults and RM3 for children. We had to pay additional RM3 for each camera. We thought it was a ridiculous charge and paid only RM3 for my camera. Rachel said she could do without taking any pictures of this place. Call us cheapskate or whatever but we only had an hour (I found that out later when they hurried us to the exit) to explore. Furthermore all we had were compact cameras and none of us were professional photographers.

There was an ice-cream stall situated strategically right after the entrance or before the exit, depending on whether you are going out or coming in. The kids were excited and quickly went over to the stall. Brian was the first to receive his ice-cream and he paid for it himself. It cost RM2 per cone.
Earlier on at my mother's house, Sze-En all of the sudden asked Aunt Rachel for money because she doesn't have any spending money. She only had RM1 and that she claimed was for God. So Aunt Rachel gave her RM3, and to be fair, gave Brian RM3 too. Aunt Rachel then told Sze-En that she would have to spend her later on, which Sze-En happily agreed.

The 3 adults received the ice-cream next and we paid accordingly. Sze-En was the last to receive her ice-cream and she was expecting one of us to pay, when Aunt Rachel asked her to pay with her own spending money. She sheepishly took out her purse and paid for her own ice-cream. This does not mean that she is stingy because as far as I know, she has a generous heart.

We saw a big cage full of lovebirds. It was a gorgeous sight, seeing so many birds chirping merrily kissing and loving each other. It was so hard to take pictures of the birds because they were constantly moving and small wire netting made it difficult to get a good angle.

Monkeys..I don't know what kind. All I know was Sze-En and Brian were so amazed at their swinging skills.

A guinea pig I think, a black parrot (not sure whether it's a parrot or not, but it sure looks like one) and some thorny stick insects... it least that's what it says in the information board. They looked like leaves and we were asked to find them in the plant leaves. After like 10 seconds Rachel spotted 3 of them up on the "ceiling" of the cage. They didn't want to be mistaken for the leaves, I suppose.

Some, probably more than 10 display of reptiles before entering the butterfly park.

5.02pm and we are now officially in the butterfly's habitat. Where are all the butterflies?

Not many butterflies to be seen. I think I saw less 10 ten butterflies. Hmmm.... I wonder what happened to the rest of them.

We forced Brian and Sze-En to take this picture with the American Alligators. They were so afraid even though these alligators were caged up. You can hardly see the alligators because the kids refused to get any closer to the reptiles, and so I took a closed up one for the kids to remember when they are older.

5.10pm -We are now at the Koi River Valley. Lots of fish and beautiful surroundings. Tusi wished we had brought some sun-dried bread to feed the fish.

Some interesting plants...

Some Koi fish I think. We could see coins at the bottom of the pond, thrown in by visitors for good luck.

As we walked along the path after the Koi pond, we reached the tortoise territory and saw this Asian tortoise trying to get out of it's compound. We stared at it for a while wondering if it could really climb out when suddenly someone spotted ( I think it was Tusi) a tortoise err... turned turtle.
It was trying to turn itself upright again. Tusi was full of compassion and wanted to help this hard-shelled friend. We didn't allow her to do so and thought of the next best thing, that was to tell one of the employees when we exit.

We watched the tortoises for a while especially the "turtled" tortoise which was struggling to get back on its feet again. We thought its friend who was nearby would help and it looked as though it was helping, when a 3rd tortoise (pic-2nd row, left) "ran" up to the struggling one to lend a helping uh... hand. In the end the poor tortoise managed to fall back on its feet again (not sure if the friends helped in any way or not), its dignity restored and the two friends were seen soothing the traumatized tortoise.

Sounds like a fairy tale, but that was what exactly happened. I didn't have time to switch my camera to video mode, otherwise I would tape the whole scene. :)

Next, we came to the Star Tortoise. Not so exciting. They didn't move at all.


Then, there were some... I think water tortoises.

And we saw a couple of huge cats. We dare not go near them and I had to zoomed an keep my hands still to take their pictures. After taking so many pictures that day, my hand was shaking slightly, so I passed the camera to Rachel to take this shot. She did a good job.

And this is the Tapir. Sze-En insisted that she wanted this shot to be taken to proof to her mom that Tapir is some kind of an animal.A few years back, Sze-En mentioned this animal to her mom, but her mom was skeptical that this animal actually existed.
There is some kind of a notice saying that the management has been consistantly monitoring the sensitive skin of the Tapir..etc.

5.26pm. Further along the path, we saw the big birds -The Cassowary and Emu.

The Hornbills.Much better looking than the ones I saw at the Malacca Zoo two weeks ago.

5.28pm. More hornbills....It was about this time when one of the employees came up to us to tell us that they are closing soon. By now we were enjoying ourselves looking at all the exotic birds.

The white peafowl, peacock and Indian peafowl, peacock. Sigh.. if only it spread out it's err... tail?!

The Indian peacock. I was rushing and my hand refuse to stay still. Most of my pictures were not too good.

A Great Argus Pheasant.

Crocodiles, more than 10 of them living here.

5.34pm. More than 20 different of species of snakes.... but no time to take all of them.

A Blue-crowned Pigeon.

5.39pm. Smooth-coated Otter. It was feeding time and we got to watch them eat. It wasn't pleasant.

5.42pm. And lastly... the museum. Lots of butterflies here.... not one alive. I started to take pictures of the displayed butterflies when suddenly one of the employees switched off the lights... I had to tell them to give me another minute. They switched the lights on again and gave me my minute.

This is certainly a rushed visit. The kids enjoyed this place more than Mini Malaysia. Probably in a couple of years time we'll come here again.

It was still bright and Sze-En wanted to go somewhere... anywhere but home. Knowing that by the time we reach home, it would be dark and so we said we would bring them to the Jejantas (Bridge) Restaurant. Sze-En cheerfully agreed because she knew that there was a KFC restaurant there and she wanted to eat chicken rice.

When we reach there, all of us wanted to eat at A&W's and so she gave in to us.

Aunt Rachel told Sze-En that she could pack the chicken rice home later. And so we had a waffle with a scoop of ice-cream, a plate of 3 pancakes with syrup, normal fries and curly fries and 2 big glasses of root beer float with 2 scoops of ice-cream shared among the 5 of us.

Later we went over to KFC and ordered chicken rice for Sze-En. She loved it so much.. chicken rice without the chicken. She could finish 2 bowls of this.
It was already about 8pm when we reached home. Tusi was so tired that my mom asked her to bathe and sleep straight away.

It was an interesting trip. We must have walked a lot because the next day our muscles ached like as though we climbed a mountain the day before.

Excursion date : 19 March 2009, Thursday.