Lions and tigers and bears, oh my

I am glad I have a home in New Zealand I can retreat to at the end of this. But if I was a lion, I would want to retreat to Bangalore.

Today I went to the Bannerghatta Biological Park. A nature reserve 25 kilometres south of Bangalore (which equates to about a 45 minute drive). It's a 11,330 hectare enclosure where the Karnataka Forest Department rehabilitates lions, tigers and sloth bears who have been rescued from circuses (you can thank Lonely Planet for the handy facts). It puts Wellington Zoo to shame.

The guy who helped me out with getting accommodation here, and helping me just in general, suggested I go. So today he sent a driver with his car (something very common here) to pick me up and take me there.

The drive there was even interesting. It is the first time I have really left the main part of the city, apart from my drive in from the airport on the first day. It was a strange mix of massive, multi-level apartments and small street-side vendors making their living. I could see why Bangalore was seen as the IT capital - some of the office buildings were huge, something you expect to see in Auckland, or New York for that matter.

The safari itself was very neat. It's the first time I have done something like this. You go in a bus with about 25 other people and drive around the park on an asphalt road. The road sort of detracts from the nature, but I guess how else do you do it. It seems to be a very popular place - I had to queue for about 30 minutes just to get on the bus and there seemed to be another equally as long queue just over from me (like most things in India, I couldn't make sense of why there were two separate lines). For once there was a benefit to travelling by myself - I was able to sit up the front of the bus in the other single seat beside the driver (although, as I learnt later, this would cost me).

The safari was about an hour long. As we drove around we had to pass through a series of gates which seemed to cut each type of animal off from the others. There were plenty of each type of animal - not like at Wellington Zoo, or any zoo for that matter, where you can spend 20 minutes looking for the two tigers who have hidden in the shade at the very back of the enclosure. I probably saw about five bears, five lions, 15 tigers, and three white tigers. Because I was at the front of the bus the driver would often take my camera and take photos for me from his side of the bus. When I went to get off the bus though I was asked to tip him. Ah, another tourist fitting into the tourist stereotype.