Trip to Bannerghatta National Park

 

Aanya posing in front of the elephant family

Ever since we disappointed poor Aanya  with the park picnic fiasco, we were feeling guilty about how poor baby is patient with our outings and social dos and does not get any outing for herself. So, we decided to take her to bannerghatta National park one of these past weekends.

She recognizes animals, off springs, sounds, etc. now(due thanks to Meow Meow auntie), we thought it would be a nice trip for her.
So we packed some food and drinks, and picked up her accessories like Hat, Sun Glasses, Bag, water bottle, etc. and started from home. BNP is about 1hour and 30 minutes drive from our place. And thankfully traffic was also not that bad.

So we reached there at about 11:30 am and started our outing with a roasted corn. Yumm!! I love bhutta! And so does Aanya. Honestly, I was a little sick of neat and cean food so wanted to hog on all the roadside food availabe there. But I recalled my past encounter with gastroenteritis and gave up the idea as quickly as it had popped up. But settles for a Sandwich and coffee. :D
There were 3 packages for safaris. We opted for the Grand Safari because we wanted to make the best of it and also, because there was no one to explain what was the diffrence between the 3 packages.
We entered the Zoo and stood in the queue for the safari. Surprisingly, the queue was a queue. Not a queue where everyone runs over each other, pushing and cutting past you.
Our journey started in a Green cage like mini-bus. Aanya was so thrilled!! We reached the Bear habitat first and there were soooooo many bears. Aanya's teddy bear poem lasted through the whole of bear park tour.
One of the co-passengers who was sitting right behind us started teasing one of the bears. the bear got really upset and spat and threw some wet mud flakes on Aanya and my faces. It made poor girl scared and also a brief episode of crying started.
Next we went to witness the Deers, Antelopes, Wild Boars, etc. in action. She was doing her counting this time.

Something very funny happened when we were heading to the tiger town. Suddenly all people stood up and stared outside one side of the bus. They started taking pictures and sighing as if they had seen a yeti or something of that sort. I asked my hubby dear to atleast check whats going on. Now what he came back with is - "there is some bird sitting on a pipe rotating its neck and people are saying 'moonga moonga' but I can't see what it is". I wondered, "Rotating neck is an owl's job". Suddenly i got a peak at the bird and it looked like a definite owl to me. The description of the bird and the people's reaction to the situation had us laughing for the next many minutes.

I don't know why, but Aanya wasn't very excited to see Tigers and Lions. It surprised me. She was as if she plays with them everyday. Or may be she was tired by then.
The safari ended at the zoo and we went around enjoying the very pleasant weather and Aanya's expressions to the animals. She was very happy to see a baby elephant. May be she could relate her smallness with him.

Also, she saw an Iguana(creepy) and said, "I for Iguana" immediately.Similarly Hippo started with an H and elephant with an E. Children of this age live in their own web of shapes, colors, letters, numbers, etc.

We avoided the snakes and the monkies were too stinky.

There was also a lonely Zebra faced against the public. I think he was so sick and bored that he wanted to say - Kiss my A**.

 

Zebra displaying his/her Rear

We ended the trip with some not so satisfying Chinese fried rice and noodles at a Karnataka Tourism Restaurants. Also, we did some shopping from the Roadside Merchandise shops(Pun Intended).
But if this was US, we would have definitely missed on Bhuttas and chai/desi coffee. Aanya got a little clucking yellow duck as her souvenir.:)