tortoises – The ExhaustNotes Blog

By Joe Berk

I’ve always held a fascination for turtles and tortoises. It started when I was a kid growing up in New Jersey. We lived in a rural part of the Garden State, and although you might be surprised to read it, a good variety of turtles and tortoises lived in the lakes, streams, and wooded areas around our home. Box turtles, wood turtles, spotted turtles, painted turtles, snapping turtles, alligator snappers, and more. As a kid, I caught a few of these, kept them as pets for a while, and then released them. Mom planted a strawberry patch in the field behind our house, and it was a safe bet that you could usually find a box turtle or two sampling the goods. It was a cool place to grow up.

On a recent trip to Singapore, Sue and I were casting about for something to do one weekend. We’ve been to Singapore several times, we’ve seen most of the sights, and we wanted to see something new. A quick Google search pointed us to Singapore’s Live Turtle Museum. It’s on the other side of the island from where we usually stay (the hoity-toity Orchard Road area). We hopped into a cab in front of our hotel and the cab driver gave us an odd look when we told him our destination.

The cabbie told us we might have some difficulty getting back “from the other side” but I thought I knew better. Singapore is not that big, I reasoned. Boy, was I ever wrong.

The ride to the Turtle Museum was about 45 minutes, and the second half of that was fairly desolate. Northern Singapore looks completely different from the Singapore I knew, which is a locale of wide boulevards, fancy cars (think Ferraris, Rolls Royces, and Bentleys), fancy hotels, and high-end shops. In fact, it seems about every other store on Orchard Road is a Rolex or Breitling authorized dealer. Not so on the other side. It’s jungles and grassy plains. And one Turtle Museum.

Once we entered the Turtle Museum, one of the first things we noticed is that you can buy lettuce to feed to the tortoises. Tortoises love lettuce. Feed one a little lettuce and you have a friend for life.

Sue bought some lettuce, fed it to a tortoise, and it was her new best buddy.

The Turtle Museum had many different species of tortoises and turtles. I’ll caption the photos with the various species.

These are African spurred tortoises, also known as Sulcata tortoises. The can get as big as 100 pounds. They dig burrows down as deep as 20 feet to escape the heat in Africa.

These are red-footed tortoises from South America. They are found from Panama to Argentina. They will grow as large as 14 inches and they live about 50 years.

Here’s an Indian Star tortoise. They can be found in the grasslands and forests of India and Sri Lanka.

This is an Indian Spotted Pond turtle. They are an endangered species.

This is an albino Pig-Nose turtle, also known as a Fly River turtle.

A closer view of the Pig Nose turtle. You can see how it gets its name. This species is found in northern Australia, southern New Guinea, and West Papua. It is a unique freshwater turtle; it’s the only species with flipper-like feet (similar to sea turtles).

Here’s a strange one: The Mata Mata turtle. It takes the word “camouflage” to a new level.

Another view of the Mata Mata turtle. It’s native to South American streams, stagnant pools, marshes, and swamps in the Amazon River basin.

This is a Snake Necked turtle, a species found in Australia and southern New Guinea. They use their long necks to snap up prey.

So there you have it: The Turtle Museum in Singapore. I enjoyed it right up to the time we left. Because the Museum is in such a remote location, there were no cabs waiting outside when we were ready to return to our Orchard Street hotel. Neither Sue nor I could get a signal on our cell phones, and there was no wireless coverage, either, so that ruled out calling a cab. To compound the problem, Singapore doesn’t have Uber of Lyft. We went back to Museum’s office area; fortunately, the office had Internet access and they secured a taxi for us. We had to wait a while for our ride, but that was okay. We had a good time. It was something different, and we saw a part of Singapore we had not seen before.

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