Four Floors of Wildlife and One Very Nervous Man
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
UAE BLOGS ONLY
Abijit Singh
7/17/202611 min read
With Safari Park temporarily closed, I made what I thought was a fairly effortless joke to my wife, who had made the journey to Dubai with me: “You came, and the animals decided to leave.” I thought it was hilarious. She did not. So, with our safari plans officially dead in the water, I discovered another place in Dubai where wildlife had taken up residence: The Green Planet. A quick look at their website revealed that they had serpents too. This information delayed my booking by roughly a week, giving my wife some much-needed time to mentally prepare for what I expected to be a catastrophic amount of screaming.
We drove over, parked up, and headed towards the entrance. Outside, they had these giant moving sculptures of the animals inside, which were genuinely pretty cool. Although I never thought I’d live to see the day when a cockroach could be considered a work of art—or one that size, at least. As soon as we passed through the gates and showed our tickets, I stopped. I looked around. Then I looked around again. My wife gave me a very confused look. She had clearly noticed my sudden and rather suspicious scanning of the surroundings. What was I looking for? An escape route? A security guard? Divine intervention? As we made our way through the café and scanned our tickets for the second time, I finally cracked. I turned to the staff member and, with all the dignity of a grown man who had voluntarily entered a building containing snakes, quietly asked:
“Are the snakes... loose?”
“Okay, look, I’m very, very, very scared of snakes. Where are they? Are they going to bring them to me?” The staff member giggled. My wife giggled. At this point, I was surrounded by people who clearly found my fear far more entertaining than I did. She began answering my increasingly frantic questions with a polite, “Sir…” before glancing over at her colleague, who was also smiling at us. I didn’t care. I had come here to see cute birds, colourful lizards, and other harmless little creatures. Not danger ropes. She explained that there was currently a snake being carried around by one of the staff members on the third floor. My eyes widened.
“You’ll start on the fourth floor and work your way down to the basement. There are also snakes on the second floor and in the basement, but they’re locked up.” Excellent. Somewhat reassuring. My questions continued. I just needed to know exactly what I was dealing with—and, more importantly, where I needed to be looking before the snakes had a chance to look at me.
We stepped out onto the fourth floor, and one of the first residents we met was this beautiful sloth, casually hanging upside down from a rope as though it had nowhere to be for the next six months. It moved exactly how you’d imagine a sloth would—slowly, peacefully, and with absolutely no concern for anybody else’s schedule. One arm reached forward, then a leg, followed by a long pause to seemingly reconsider whether moving was even worth the effort. There was something strangely elegant about it. Surrounded by all the greenery, suspended above us without a care in the world, it looked completely tranquil—like it had somehow figured out the secret to life and the rest of us were doing it wrong. After spending the past week mentally preparing myself for snakes, this was much more my speed. No pun intended.
At the centre of it all stood a gigantic artificial tree, rising through the building from the floors below and stretching towards the glass dome above. Its enormous trunk split into twisting, bare branches that reached out in every direction, while vines and greenery climbed around its base. With sunlight pouring through the dome and the walkways circling around it, the whole place suddenly felt enormous—less like an indoor attraction and more like we had stepped into our own little rainforest. After admiring the sloth for a while, I turned to my right and noticed we had company. Walking along the wooden path towards us was a beautiful deep-blue pigeon, looking considerably more exotic than anything I'd ever seen fighting over a chip back home. We weren’t scared of it exactly, but we were cautious. It was walking freely, after all, and neither of us knew the rules here. Does it move for us? Do we move for it? Who has right of way in a rainforest? Its dark blue feathers had an almost velvety look, but it was the little crest on top of its head that caught my attention—its feathers peaked upwards like a tiny crown, giving it this strangely proud, important appearance. Tt calmly continued towards us as if it owned the place. To be fair, it probably did.
A narrow wooden bridge led us closer towards the enormous tree trunk, and as I walked along it, out strutted yet another bird. This one was impossible to miss - beautiful pale, almost silver-white feathers covered its body, contrasted by a dark head and a bright splash of red around its face. It casually wandered right past our feet with the confidence of something that knew full well the sign said “Please do not touch the birds.” I don’t think I’ve ever recorded a bird with so much precision and focus in my life. The camera followed its every step like I was filming a wildlife documentary for the BBC. As we circled the tree trunk, another sound caught our attention. Tweet. Tweet. Tweet. There was definitely a bird nearby, but for the life of me, I couldn’t see it. I followed the sound until I finally peered over the rope barrier—and there it was. A tiny little red chatterbox, barely the size of my hand, tucked amongst the greenery. Its body was a gorgeous mix of deep red and green, with a dark head and a bright orange beak that looked almost oversized on such a tiny creature. And it would not sit still. Up the rope. Down the rope. A little hop. Another climb. Another tweet. Then off again. This tiny bird had somehow gathered an audience of about seven people, all standing there watching its every move. You really don’t need to be big to feel big—and this little chatterbox absolutely knew it. Eventually, we pulled ourselves away and headed back towards the circular walkway to continue our journey down. Then, stretched across two enormous branches jutting out from the tree, we spotted two lemurs. Oh my word. They were gorgeous. Their soft grey-brown fur almost blended into the branches beneath them, but their faces were unmistakable—white markings surrounding dark, almost mask-like eyes, with little pointed ears poking through their fur. One was sprawled across the branch with its arms wrapped around it, its head resting down as though the tree had been specifically designed as its personal bed. The other had found its own branch a little further away and appeared equally committed to doing absolutely nothing. And somehow, they were sleeping through everything. People were talking below them, birds were calling from every direction, and the parrots flying high above us were making enough noise for their calls to echo throughout the entire building. The lemurs?Not even remotely interested. They clung lazily to their branches, completely unbothered by the chaos around them. No twitching, no looking around, no concern whatsoever.
We continued around the outer walkway, spiralling further and further down until we reached the third floor. The floor with the snake. My wife went ahead first to investigate and, sure enough, beside the lift stood a man holding one. Not behind glass. Not safely locked away. In his hands. He was showing it to the kids and even letting people hold it. Me?
Bro, jump out the building.
That was genuinely my first thought. Unfortunately, The Green Planet had done a remarkably good job of sealing the place shut.
“Wait here,” my wife said. “I’ll tell him to move back.” Finally, someone taking this situation seriously.
A few moments later, she called my name and gave me the all-clear. I cautiously made my way forward and—beautiful—the snake guy had completely disappeared. I hurried past before he could respawn. Then I looked back. He had respawned. There he was again, and I caught just enough of a glimpse of the long, slithery grey thing wrapped around his hands to send a shiver straight down my spine. That was all the encouragement I needed. My walking speed increased considerably, along with the number of times I checked my surroundings. Thankfully, we soon found another narrow bridge leading directly back towards the centre of the giant tree. This one was slightly longer, suspended amongst the branches and greenery. I walked all the way to the end and cautiously poked my head around, checking to see if anything was waiting for me. Nothing. Perfect. I turned around to head back and, tucked away in the corner, that tiny red parrot from earlier suddenly appeared again, happily tooting away at me. You again. Then I looked down. Just beneath the bridge, perched beautifully amongst a web of branches, sat another bird. Its feathers were a striking deep blue, almost blending into the shadows and greenery below. From above, it looked completely settled into the tree, perched quietly amongst the branches while everything carried on around it. I managed to get a lovely recording of it too—one of those little moments I probably would have completely missed had I not stopped and looked down. I stepped off the bridge to let the next group through, and we continued spiralling down towards the second floor. That was when we came across another animal—and this one immediately stopped me. Curled up directly on the railing was this ridiculously fluffy black-and-white creature, fast asleep as if the handrail were a luxury mattress. Its body was bundled into one enormous ball of fur, with its head tucked down and its thick black limbs wrapped around itself. You could barely work out where one part of it ended and another began. It looked so unbelievably cute. And opposite it, water cascaded from the level above into the rainforest below. Thick greenery surrounded us, vines hung from the walkways and the sound of the waterfall filled the space. Visually, it was extraordinary. But strangely, I think this was also the moment my feelings about The Green Planet became a little more complicated. As beautiful as the place was—and as much as I loved being this close to these animals—I found myself wondering whether some of them actually wanted to be here. I didn't know their individual stories. Maybe some had been rescued, injured, endangered, or couldn't survive safely in the wild. I genuinely didn't know, so I didn't want to pretend that I did. But seeing this little animal curled up asleep on the railing, surrounded by concrete walkways, barriers and people constantly passing by, made me feel something I hadn't really felt upstairs. A little guilty. The waterfall opposite was beautiful. The rainforest around it was beautiful. The animal itself was beautiful. And yet, for the first time that day, instead of thinking how lucky I was to be this close to them, I found myself wondering how they felt about being this close to us.
Level two had another snake. Of course it did. By now, my wife and I had developed a system. She went ahead as reconnaissance, located the threat, assessed the containment situation, and then reported back. “It’s in a cage. It’s properly closed. You can come.” I cautiously followed her and, from a very respectable distance, caught a glimpse of it—a bright green serpent curled and crawling along a little tree branch. That was enough sightseeing for me. I immediately looked away and redirected my attention towards something far more deserving of it: the frogs. These chunky little things sat behind the glass looking wonderfully unbothered, their throats expanding and contracting over and over again like they were casually chewing enormous pieces of bubblegum. Now these I could appreciate. I admired them for a while before moving on quickly, making absolutely sure I didn't accidentally make eye contact with the green danger rope again. Down we went. Then I stopped. I suddenly realised nobody was around me. Absolutely not. I waited for my wife to catch up and immediately reinstated her position as Head of Security. “Are there any more?” “No. There’s nothing here.” I pointed towards the ceiling, where some flying foxes were hanging upside down above us. She looked up. “Ohhhhh.” Excellent security work. Still, bats I could handle, so I cautiously continued forward—“AH!” “What?!” she shouted. “LOOK! There’s another snake in the cage right here!” Apparently she couldn't see this one either. She walked right up to the glass, stared inside for a moment and then came the response I was becoming increasingly familiar with: “Ohhhhh.” At this point, I was beginning to question the reliability of my scout. I removed myself from the immediate snake vicinity and continued along the cave-like pathway, where several more glass enclosures had been built directly into the rocky walls. Naturally, my wife inspected those first too. “Don't worry,” she said. “These are your favourite.” I looked inside. Lizards!Now we're talking. Yes, they're cold-blooded too. Yes, they're reptiles. Yes, I fully understand the hypocrisy here. But lizards are damn cool. Within seconds, all the fear and caution disappeared and I found myself standing at the glass talking to one like somebody's puppy. “Heyyy, little guy.” A brief moment passed before I became painfully aware that I was a grown man sweet-talking a lizard through a window. I stopped. We carried on, and although I remained slightly hesitant around every corner, I was beginning to relax again. I was pretty sure that was it for the snakes. Until the basement.
The rest of the floor was considerably easier on my nerves. There were fish, a few tiny flying creatures that seemed far more interested in not being seen than entertaining us, and—oh!—a couple of baby crocodiles just chilling away. Crocodiles, strangely enough? Fine. Apparently my brain has decided that an animal capable of eventually dragging me underwater is perfectly acceptable, but a long noodle with no legs is where we draw the line. Towards the end of the walkway, I spotted a couple of staff members standing ahead. By this point, I wasn't taking any chances.
“Any snakes there?”
“No,” one of them replied.
“Thank you.”
She giggled, probably at the sheer sincerity in my voice. But I didn't care. I'd made it. Fourth floor. Done. Third floor. Survived. Second floor. Survived with minor emotional damage. I had reached the end. Except, apparently, I hadn't. One of the staff members informed me there was still the basement. The two of them looked at each other with smiles on their faces - the kind of smiles that immediately told me I wasn't going to enjoy whatever came next. Then they said it.
“Down in the basement, there are anacondas.”
What the f—
“We aren’t going.” I cried, “No. No, no, no, no. No way.”
Proceeds to press ‘B’ in the lift. My wife, unlike me, actually wanted to see the anacondas. Her solution to my problem was wonderfully simple:
“Just don’t look at them.”
Helpful advice, I’d say. Thankfully, when we reached the basement, the layout worked massively in my favour. It was essentially one straight path from entrance to exit. Halfway through, however, the path curved around a darker enclosure area where the anacondas were kept behind glass. As soon as I saw that eerie red glow coming from inside, I knew. That’s the room. The basement is called Creatures of the Night, so the dim red lighting added to the whole nocturnal atmosphere. For me, however, it served an even more important purpose: a warning beacon. I stepped about two feet into the room, assessed the situation and immediately decided that was plenty. I was out. My wife continued inside while I took the alternative route and waited for her near the other side. Every now and then I'd look towards the exit, wondering what was taking her so long. Then I saw her face. Whatever expression she came out with was enough confirmation that I had made an excellent decision. She started describing them to me. Apparently, they were massive—thick-bodied snakes stretched across the floor and pressed against the glass, taking up an uncomfortable amount of space in their enclosures. I didn't need these details.
Then she said:
“There was a yellow one... and a black one.” Goosebumps. Actual goosebumps. For reference, The Green Planet says its two anacondas are around four metres long, so my wife's description of them being enormous was apparently not an exaggeration. I looked at her.
“We are done. Let's go.” And with that, we climbed the stairs, got ourselves out of the basement and left The Green Planet. I had done it. Sloths. Lemurs. Crocodiles. Lizards. Birds. Frogs. Flying foxes. And far, far too many snakes. But I survived. More importantly, I never had to meet the anacondas.
Loved every single bit of it… except, you know… the danger ropes.
