Leaving Namakkal for Ooty

I'll be leaving Namakkal for Ooty tomorrow morning. Hopefully I'll get to post a few more entries by then - we'll see what I can do with my two hours of internet access tomorrow morning.
Anywho, we'll be going to Ooty, which will be cool (temperature-wise) since it's up on a mountain. Then we'll head to the elephant reserve. We'll hit up a few more touristy places and of course, farms. On the 8th I'll be back in Chennai for one day only and hopefully get to post about my travels. (internet access will be spotty at best for the next two weeks).
Hopefully I'll be able to post something before then.

Hope you liked the pictures!
-Erin

7-20-10 The ZOO!

Ok, here’s the zoo! We got to go around the zoo with the head vet and it was awesome. First, the highlights!

I got to hold a baby white tiger (1.5 months old)




I also got to play with baby elephants:








I also got to hold a Chameleon:


And shake hands with a gorilla:



Ok, and now, other pictures:
Peacock:


Bird Refuge:


Zoo Vet and his buddy:


Barking Deer:


Creepy Red Fuzzy arachnid:


Bird flying in the walk-through aviary:



Leopard:


Wallace and a Snake:


Another Snake:


A whole box of baby snakes that were just born (this species does live births) – anywho, they’re super poisonous and the zoo can’t maintain that many so they’re releasing them into the wild:


Rescue Tiger:

The zoo takes in tigers and lions that were mistreated by circuses and keeps them for the rest of their lives. Many of them were very angry and had sad docked tails and other signs of abuse…





Ok, and last but not least:
A baby elephant learning to do tricks with his foster “mom.” Apparently elephants bond with one person and these baby elephants were taken from poachers (usually the poachers picked off their moms) so they no longer had their moms. They adopted the elephant keeper and now he has to entertain them or they’ll get bored and destructive.

This one can lie down on both sides and walk with different gaits. He’s currently learning to stand on his hind legs, but he doesn’t have the weight to support that position yet.
He was super cute. We fed him bananas.

The end for a bit.

7-20-10 Snake Park and Crocodile Bank

We went to the Snake Park and the Crocodile Bank on the 20th. The Snake Park opened on it’s day off to show us around, so we were the only people there. It was rather snazzy. The vet in charge there took us around and showed us different species of both snakes and other reptiles. They close the park one day a week because they want to let some of the non-poisonous snakes out for some exercise and they also feed some of the snakes – they feed them baby chicks – which the public finds displeasing. Anywho, here are many of the species that we saw at the snake park:

Spectacled Cobra:



Sand Boa not in cage (people try to break in and steal them for pseudo-medical purposes):


Common Vine Snake:


Spotted Rock Gecko:


Snake out on a walk:



Watch out for some of the snakes: Poison!


Bronzeback Tree Snake:


Nile Crocodile:


Yellow Monitor:


Indian Black Turtle:



Snakes protecting Vishnu:


Annulate Sea Snake:



Next we went to the Crocodile Bank. The Zoo Vet took us around and showed us all sorts of reptiles and took us behind the scenes where smaller animals are kept as well as into her lab.
Here’re are some of the pictures from the Croc Bank:

How to tell Crocs from Gators from Gharials:


Gharial:



Red Sand Boa:


Indian Rock Python:


Black Turtle Baby:


Marsh Crocodiles:




False Gharial:


This was really neat – they used old flip-flops to collect algae that was growing in the park water circulation system. Since flip flops are so cheap, they could replace them as often as needed.


Turtles:




Next: Zoo!