Hanging like Tarzan

If you enjoy an adrenalin rush and always wanted to swing from trees to trees like Tarzan, there is a place in Singapore designed just for that purpose. It is a place called, "Forest Adventure" which sits on the Northern shore of Bedok Reservoir near the Changi Airport. From the City, it's an easy 20-30 minute cab ride (around SGD10-12 per trip) away.

We were told of this venue by our friend, Leelee Heng/Goh, who visited with his son (Chi-chen) and daughter (Yi-chen) during Xmas. She told Felicia that it was a lot of fun and a "must-do" activity with the kids during our visit to Singapore. I checked the website and found that we must pre-book before our arrival to ensure that we are able to this during our visit. Nicholas's good friend from his childhood days, Pia Wong, was able to join us in this adventure as she did not have school on this day.

We didn't pay much attention to the driving instructions given by Forest Adventure's website and got lost around the Bedok Reservoir and arrived at the adventure site (300m walk from the drop-off point) about 10-15 minutes past our appointment. Since the adventure involves a series of "unguided" activities on a course which featured four "zip-lines" as well as many climbs, swings, tight-rope walks,..etc., all taken place at 5-8 meters above ground, we had to go through an orientation course before we departed. The instructor, Sebastian, was very friendly and thorough with us. Felicia was clearly very nervous while Nick and Matt were very excited. I was not particularly keen on these activities in general. Since Felicia was already very nervous, I didn't want to make the situation worse by being nervous as well.

There are four sections in the "Grand Course." The very first activity involved climbing up 5 meter (about 15 feet) onto a platform in a tree, jumping off Tarzan style and swing into a vertical net which one has to climb up onto the second platform. Some stages were a little scarier than others but most were pretty simple. It helps to tall in most cases (minimum height of 140cm), but there was one stage which involved climbing through a rather small wooden barrel which meant that one's size was directly proportional to the difficulties of passing this stage.

All together, there were 32 different stages including four zip-line activities, all with portion of the ride going over water. The longest one is 176m long which was very exciting, but over in less than a minute. The whole course can be finished within two hours. Given that there were five of us, it took us just a little over two hours to complete the course. Felicia and I were both relieved to have done it but the boys were excited and vow to come back again.