My East-Coast-to-Singapore-jet lag had me waking up at 4:00 in the morning as an energizer bunny, much to the chagrin of my aunt, but on my third day in Singapore, it actually paid off, as we got up bright and early for a treetop walk at Windsor Park.

(When I tell people that I’m “feeling outdoorsy” it really just means that I am leaving the house) and yet here I was at a nature walk that was in fact oozing nature all around me. 

The Treetop Walk is a 5 mile long hike that takes you through a monkey-filled rain forest. Long wooden walkways sprawl up and down hillsides with thick swaths of trees on either side of you. A narrow suspension bridge carries you over the trees. 

Monkeys stared at me from the trees, looking almost as fascinated by me as I was with them. The mothers walked around with their babies strapped to their chests. 

They crawled on top of the metal structures for the construction site that was happening next door and then ran alongside joggers, like they were their running partners. 

The monkeys are famous for trying to snatch items out of tourists’ hands in an attempt to bargain for food. At the beginning of our hike, a monkey started chasing my aunt around, trying to get her water bottle from her. That same monkey ran out in front of me and I ran screaming in the opposite direction. I was too terrified to get anywhere near it, much to the amusement of the other tourists around me. I eventually was able to walk by, unassaulted by the monkey, and continued on with the hike. 

The Treetop Walk is not for the faint of heart. The humidity was so strong it was like I was swimming just walking around. I sweated more than I thought was humanly possible with sweat stains going from my arm pit to my hip. It felt like every hot yoga class I had ever taken. I was so hot and sweaty that at some point I stopped making sense. 

We walked across a swinging suspension bridge which had a strict weight limit and instructions for what to do if a snake fell onto the bridge in front of us (panic).

For much of the hike, I wore a beautiful sunhat that my brother gave me as a birthday gift. It looked like I had a satellite dish on my head. Once I put it on, it actually kind of made me look like the flying nun. 

At some point, my aunt and I had seen countless monkeys and bravely walked across a swaying bridge. We wanted to go home, but, after much denial, we realized that we were lost. We had been wandering on the trails for a while and suddenly could no longer see the forest through the trees. 

We walked over the tree roots that all looked like kimono dragons to a tired and dehydrated traveler. We asked people for directions that only made us more lost until the trail we were walking on spat us out on a random sidewalk along the highway, an anticlimactic, but much-needed end to a treeline hike through the forest.

From there, we jumped on a bus going in a direction– we weren’t sure which–and then wound up at a McDonald’s. After returning to civilization, our legs destroyed from all of the walking and our bodies nearly wrecked from heat stroke, I went for a swim in the pool to cool off. 

After a long, hot day of being chased around by monkeys, walking across a suspension bridge, and getting stranded on the side of a road, I can finally say that I have seen nature in the wild. I have looked a monkey in the eye. 

The Tragic Queen,

Raquel

P.S.: Check out how I spent my previous day in Singapore, exploring Chinatown.