Across the road from the Melaka Zoo is the Taman Buaya Melaka (“Melaka Crocodile Park”) – and I do literally mean across the road! If you stand at the gate of the zoo and look across the road the gate to the Crocodile Park is right there. It is a small place, not extremely nasty but not exactly great either! It only cost 10 Ringgitts for entry (about NZ$4). There were radio speakers everywhere playing the obvious mix of Red Hot Chili Peppers and Nikki Minaj songs. I was through it and done in twenty minutes. The park is aimed mainly at families I think. There is a “mini Malaysia” (scale models of Malaysian landmarks), a haunted house ride, a fun fair, that sort of thing. And then there are the animals. Most of them are crocodiles, naturally enough, and most of those are saltwater crocs although there are also small pens for individual Siamese crocs, a false gharial, a mugger, a spectacled caiman, and those two well-known wonders of the animal kingdom, the hunch-backed crocodile and the tailless crocodile. The enclosures for saltwater crocs are fairly large, for the others not at all. I don't think this is a commercial crocodile farm in any way, unless there is more I did not see, simply a small zoo built around some pools of crocodiles. There is a small show amphitheatre but it was not in use. Apart for the crocodiles there is also a separate reptile section, although the Reptile House itself was closed. In outside pens were yellow-footed and red-footed tortoises, some turtles (I think probably Batagur but all I could see were their backs showing from the mucky water) and apparently green iguana (I couldn't see any). A small fish tank had an eastern snake-necked turtle in it. The bird section had individual aviaries for blue peafowl, sun conures, barbary doves, miniature chickens and lovebirds. There was also a small but well-planted walk-through aviary (locked up) in which I saw mandarin and fulvous whistling ducks, an African grey parrot, spot-necked and zebra doves, and Indian ringnecks. Signage suggested the additional species of golden and Lady Amherst's pheasants, chukar, Jardine's parrot, white-eyed conure, eastern rosella, Ducorp's cockatoo and wandering whistling duck (presumably all in the walk-through aviary). Nearby the so-called Mammal House had three smallish glass-fronted enclosures (one labelled for the green iguana I couldn't see). The middle enclosure had the front covered in hessian so I thought it was under repair but I had a peek anyway and saw that there was a pair of coatis with two babies inside. The third cage had a raccoon. And that was that. Not much worth going to see.
