Baby, It's a Jungle Out There

Tourism  has become, for most countries without resources, a most profitable industry.  This year the Olympics will bring to Britain, hopefully, a great deal of prestige and earnings.  But this 'sceptred isle' has no problem in touting her history and culture as a selling point to tourists from all over the world.

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I saved that cutting from a long time ago - to remind me why London has more tourists than natives, why you must avoid the Lake District in summer because it is Beatrix Potter country and Stratford-upon-Avon is a must for many Americans.
 
Sometime in May this year I saw this product for sale at our local Evington Road Co-Op, Leicester.  More than the product itself, it was the advertisement that caught my attention.

Buy Capri-Sun and you have the chance to win an all-expenses paid wildlife adventure.  This adventure promises :

Watching elephants batheing? breakfast with orang utans? fraternising with deers and lions and tigers??
Is this jungle deep in the Amazon forest, the jungles of Borneo or the Congo Equatorial Forest?

No, it's in a country that's just 682 sq. km in area but which has 3,000 km of roads.  It's the largest exporter of ornamental fish ( 25% of the world's market).  The highest man-made waterfall is located here and at 30 metres high it's about one-sixth of the country's highest natural point.  It boasts of having the largest fountain in the world.  All these in the second most densely populated country in the world  (after Monaco) and where 90% of the population live in high rise flats. 

It once described itself simply as an island, but now that teeny-weeny pockets of land and sand and reefs can be 'stitched' up to the mother island  (like the Southern Islands in the south-west) to create an extension - the existence of 63 other tiny islands have been included in the CV.

Well. this is the location of the Grand Prize.

Perhaps the most enticing part is the Night Safari, which has been well publicised in the brochures.

 

NB : Bukit Timah at 164 metres is the highest point, the waterfall is at Jurong Bird Park,  the fountain is at Suntec City,  SE Asia's largest gambling joint and the Night Safari is the pride of the Zoo, the first night zoo in the whole world!

The people who made all these wonders possible live here.



Thank you Lely for this photograph

I wish all the winners a great time prowling in this promised  jungle theme park.  I wonder if George in Leicester got the prize.   Perhaps I should have made an effort too!