Vandalur & Dead End Shopping

Saturday we went to the Vandalur zoo. It was a sprawling affair with mostly-open air natural-style enclosures. The first thing we did was hop on one of those Jurassic Park buses and go see the lions. It was billed as a Lion Safari, but it was more like let's-drive-up-the-driveway-of-the-lion-area-and-then-turn-around-and-go-back. It lasted about 5 minutes.
But there were some close-up views, even though they were obstructed by the jostling humanity on the bus and the chicken wire and bars on the windows.


And some unusual activity.


After the lions, the driver dropped us off the middle of the park. It's made of a series of long, looping roads. We looked at the signs trying to figure out where to go, but they lacked the You Are Here legend and were mostly in Tamil. In the end, we picked a direction and headed off.

There were big cats - white tigers, panthers and jaguars. The walk was decent and there was enough shade to make things bareable, though by the end I needed a time out at the snack station. We also saw some birds, hippos and elephants, giraffes, zebras- the usual zoo stuff.

Along the way our party crossed paths with a Muslim Girl's School on an outing. One thing about Indians that we've noticed; they don't mind staring at you. You expect that when you catch someone staring at you, they will look away. Not here, they just keep staring. With these girls I'd smile and wave or say something; they just kept staring in stony silence. We were more interesting than the exhibits to some of them.


Perhaps it seemed like there was an element of disapproval from the Muslim girls. Not so with the young boys. They came up and stared, when I turned to acknowledge them, they were delighted. It was like when the monkey in the cage sees you back. They saluted and were of course happy to get the horns out for snaps. I've really enjoyed the kids on these trips.


Later in the day we tried to go shopping. We'd been blanked so far by the other shopping areas so we had high hopes for the new places our counterparts had recommended. Bangalore had so much great shopping we foolishly assumed Chennai would be the same. We struck out again.

We have pretty much given up on finding good shopping times here. Still, it was long, active day. Although we had had plans to visit some of the nightlife, we ended up calling it an early night. Tick tock, Chennai, only a few days left...