India: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Sutton family. Their 18 week mission: to explore strange new worlds, to understand culture and traditions, history and life style, to boldly go where not many white men have gone before.
Well, no starship for us though, not even our own car…but we wouldn’t even want to drive in this chaotic traffic. Funnily enough we haven’t seen a single traffic accident yet. I bet if Ian or myself took to driving here it would not take long to experience one. So for getting around it’s walk, auto rickshaw or cab, the last one being similar to hiring a car, just that it comes with driver.
That is what we did on Sunday to get to Bannerghatta National Park. The park is about 23 km outside of Bangalore, direction south. First obstacle is a blocked road forcing us to take a detour through the Bangalore outskirts of town. We see the usual mix of buildings people live in – little cottages / sheds, apartment blocks, normal houses… At the roadside people, cows, goats, rubbish. Every few minutes somebody spots a temple close by, they come in all sizes – little shrines no bigger than a coffee table up to magnificent palaces. Further out buildings make way for meagre woods. A few castle like looking colleges out here. Not long before we come to a town and just beyond it the gate to the national park. Grainne can’t help saying “This is it?” Well, it does look different to the entrance to some tranquil Australian national park. The level of noise, dust, rubbish and crowdedness is not that much lower than in the city. This is it. Our driver parks the car and we walk off to find the ticket office. We pass a long row of street stalls selling sun hats, corn cobs roasted over coal, ice cream, various other snacks, drinks, fruit, etc. After getting tickets for the zoo and safari we pass another gate and get pointed into the right direction to attend the safari. Everything looks as it is laid out to shove through thousands of people every day. The tour buses look quite grim, very defensive with bars in front of the windows. I can’t help wondering whether these are there to keep animals out or people in. Very fond memories of my safari times in Africa come back into my mind… Anyway, we enter the bus and are told where to sit. Ian is lucky enough to get the best seat in the bus – right in the front with a big enough gap in the bars to be able to take some pictures. Then we drive off through various animal sanctuaries. We encounter spotted deer, boars, white and orange tigers, bears, lions. Kids love it, even though it’s mostly hard to watch the animals through crowded people and bars.
After about 45 mins we are dismissed from the bus at the entrance to the butterfly park. We are greeted by some monkeys jumping around in the trees and trying to empty the rubbish bin. The main attraction of the butterfly park is a big pavilion with lots of exotic plants and obviously butterflies. Very nice… Just too many people.
Our last stop is the zoo. Large trees give shade to a vast area of pathways and cages. First section: reptiles. And there we also have the first difference to any other zoo I have visited in Europe or Australia – no reptile house! It is warm enough here all year round, that the enormous snakes can be kept outside in cages. Second difference we notice is the attitude towards the animals. A sad looking lonely zebra is resting in the middle of its enclosure. Some guy picks up a stone and throws it at the animal which is leaping up after being hit. Big cheers from the group of the stone thrower… Spotting the elephants from a distance I wonder how they can be kept in an enclosure with a feeble looking low fence. Then I realise that they are chained. A bit further on a couple of them are chained very close to the fence and keepers watch people teasing them, pulling their ears, etc. We don’t want to watch that… and leave. And there is the third difference awaiting us at the exit – we don’t have to walk through a shop to get out! Now, that is a pleasant one.
The journey back is much quicker than journey here as the main road is open again. Everybody is suitably tired and we take it easy for the rest of the day.
All in all a great Sunday outing even though not quite as expected. Ian, having been here 2 weeks longer than us, had been the keenest to get out of the city. We had hoped to stock up on oxygen, find some quiet, peaceful spots, escape from crowded people and dirt. And indeed, the air was slightly clearer out there, but uncrowded, clean, quiet… well, I guess it’s gonna be a challenge to find that anywhere as near as the park…
The Suttonses in Bangalore 