Vampires do exist

I went to the zoo a lot when I was young and remember being scared of the lion and laughing at the monkeys, but when my dad suggested going to the zoo on our family holiday to Malaysia I was not impressed by the idea. We’d seen the Chinese market, been to a Hindu temple in a cave and done a canopy walk with amazing views of the city, so the zoo seemed a bit boring and childish. Even so, on our last day in Kuala Lumpur we’d done everything else on our to-do list and decided to have a nice relaxing walk around the zoo.

After waking up early to get there for the opening time, getting a bus across the city, getting lost and finally finding the zoo, I was already regretting going. I have to say, it wasn’t at all what I expected! As soon as we walked through the entrance we saw a huge lake full of all kinds of birds; a vulture nearly as big as me, flamingos and pelicans. Even better was the elephant enclosure where the elephants were reaching their trunks across the barriers and almost touching us! There were kangaroos and emus, different species of monkey and we had to spend at least half an hour watching the tigers prowl around their enclosure as they roared and yawned showing their terrifying teeth.

This was all very exciting but you always see these animals, whether its pictures on the internet or programmes on TV. The real surprise was when we went through a door into an enclosure. We expected to see birds and walked right into the cage, stopping only when we saw the information boards to our left. They were about a ‘flying fox’ a species of giant bat. Then we turned around. About two meters behind us were three of the scariest things I’d ever seen, and we were in their cage! Huge bats, literally the size of foxes were hanging upside down, asleep. We had just read that they were herbivores but all of the vampire stories seemed much more real at that point. We imagined that if they woke up they would definitely sink their teeth into our necks. We headed towards the door, trying to be as quiet as possible. Then something fell. One opened its huge wings. We ran.