Bannerghata

Bannerghata

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Spent the day at the Bannerghata National Park today. It's basicaly a zoo/safari quite close to the city. I took the trip with Nels, who is also interning in MSR. We took a cab for the day - amazingly, that's probably the most economical way for shorter trips. Maybe renting a car would be cheaper and nicer in some ways - but the thing is, it seems that driving here is best left to professionals. Everyone (well, almost everyone from the middle class up) has a driver; even for example some young people working at the tech companies here.

The driver of the safari minibus gave us the best seats, probably in hope of a large tip. Or maybe he was being nice to the two confused-looking white guys. (If it was for the tip, his hopes turned out to be largely unfounded. Always expecting the best in people, we decided that he was just being nice. ) The views were great though. I saw lots of the big cats from up close. The whole safari thing is of course fairly artificial - the lions and tigers live in fenced areas. But the back country is real - and very nice. The terrain is mountainous with mostly dry, red soil, covered with grass and bushes, and with patches bamboo groves and forests.