A day out with the kids!

It has been a more than 60 hours since I went to the gym, more than 36 hours since I played anything or even went outside. All the while I have spending my precious little time with kids. A 10 year old boy and a 5 year old girl. Since they are kids and are from Mumbai they speak very little of Tamil or English and love speaking in Hindi. In case you didn’t know, Hindi is definitely not my cup of tea. So it was little tough communicating with them. But manageable of course (everything is manageable for a versatile young man like me!). Anyhoo, it was fun. I had a new task in hand in keeping them entertained and I think I was, as always, successful in doing so.

It all began with me picking them up from the airport three days back. I am seeing them after one and a half years and thankfully they did remember my beautiful face. Their first day here wasn’t all that exciting. We lunched outside and they were off, going out to see a few family friends of theirs. They were back a little late and were totally exhausted. But their day did end on a high note as they were given the pleasure of going on a drive in the black beauty.

The next day morning, we were up early as there lied a big day ahead. A day filled with lots of fun and Crocodiles. Yes, Crocodiles. We were heading towards the Crocodile Bank on the East Coast Road! Yipee! I was more excited than they were. I swear! I have always loved watching Crocodiles and Snakes on Animal Planet with Stewe Irwin and Jeff Corwin. Too much fun it used to be. Though, to be frank, I am scared of those creatures, i found no harm caused by just looking at them, admiring their beauty.

We left at around 930 and reached Crocodile Bank in an hour. We paid almost all the cash we had, to get in there with our cameras and stuff. And finally we saw Crocs! Loads of them I tell you! It was a delight to the eyes seeing so many of them lying one above the other in harmony and peace! It was an amazing sight. I took loads of pics and clearly I couldn’t hide the excitement! The little girl was just staring at it whereas the boy was jumping around like a frog.

There were 14 varieties of Crocodiles in all apart from the Snakes and Tortoises. It was brilliant. There was a stall in which people showed us how to handle Crocs, Snakes and Turtles. They charged people who wanted to hold them. As I was in charge of the camera and photo taking I was unable to play with those tiny creatures, so instead I let the young guy have the pleasure. For his age he was too brave and despite being wacked in the hand by the tiny Alligator he persisted and held the Baby Python in his hand. Hats off to him. He did whatever he did with a lovely smile on his face.

The little girl meanwhile was too scared to even see her brother play around with these wild creatures. She decided to stay behind her mother during all this drama. It was then decided that we’d feed those hungry Crocodiles with some meat. That again involved money. Bah! Who cares!?! As long as their tummy is filled we were happy. So there came the man with a bucket full of meat. And on the sound of the bucket hitting their compound the Crocs came out of the pond and were waiting to pounce on the meat that the guy was ready to fling. And so he did and the Croc nearest to the compound got the first piece. The guy was a little nice flinging the next chunk to another Croc a little farther down. Two pieces went to the crows as the crocs were too slow (or maybe they didn’t like the meat?). It was again great to watch all of this.

I got a my chance to see The Gharial finally! A HUGE one! It was the highlight of the whole trip!

That was about it. In all it was a wonderful trip. We then went off to Mahabalipuram for sight seeing. It was lovely. On our way back we went to Dolphin City where there were no Dolphins but only Sea Lions. It was really disturbing for me to see the way they in which the Sea Lions were made to do all that they did just for getting the food that was to be offered. Thank God it didn’t take much time there.