It is never easy to express the travelling experince through words. There are so many things to share but some moments missed out while few moments can not be expressed in words. Atleast this happens to me most of the time. Let see if I can bead my experience once again or I fail. Last weekend I was on a travelling tour towards the South-East region of India. We visited many places but to begin our tour we stopped at the Nandan Kannan Zoological Park .
As the name itself suggest it was a Zoo-logical tour. Means visting a zoo with some logic behind. Everytime when you make such visit to the zoo, you will either enjoy or feel sorry for the caged animal. However, such tour is a good learning experjnce for the young kids. For adults like us there is alwsys a curiousty within to see the different animals / wild animals other than human beings. (they always remain around us and we are one of them)
When we reached the spot, it was already too late to make a complete tour. There were still few crowd at the entrance. We took the entry ticket 50 cents (approx) and passed through the electronic entry gate to the other side.
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Nandankanan Zoological Park is a 437-hectare zoo and botanical garden in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India.
This zoo is one of the breeding centre for many wild animals. It is spread is huge area and accomodstes many animals. This zoo is famous for the wild life safari, but we got bit late in makjng in time. So we were quick to make a tour on foot. There are various animals caged for the public. And to make the zoo tour easy, there was a big route map with detailed animal enclosure right at the entrance gate.
Wildlife in itself is an interesting topic. Watching the wild animals in open is a different experience than watching them over NGC or Discovery channels on a 30 inch television. I had been to other Zoos of India. Still I was to excited to visit Nandankanan Zoological Park especially because of the presence of white tiger and also to enjoy open safari inside a vehicle. But my excitement was cut short. Still I try to enjoy every moment watchingbyhe wild animals inside closure.
The entrance was beautified with a big fountain. A good spot within the zoo for selfie and group photos. And rightly so many people were busy in getting themselves clicked at the very spot.
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Rather than wasting our time, we started our tour towards the caged animals enclosure. There were many people around us even few groups were accompanied by local tour guide. So I was around the tour guide to take more insight of the zoo. However he sounds too familiar like us. Our basic knowledge match with each other.
My first encounter happens with bear group. It instantly reminded me of the crypto bearish run. But soon I get back to the Wildlife adventure. The black hair wild big animal busy playing with the soil. There were 2 different enclosure for different species of bear. Each of them looks bit rude and angry.
Bear Enclosure
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There was enough fencing and bear were at abgoo distant. Neither we get too close nor they come closer to us. Our next stop was at the Crocodile lake. There are abundant of them unmoved lying on the soil. All of them were outside the water body.
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Nandankanan has created its unique place for successful captive breeding of endangered Gharials in 1980
The only way to diffrentiste between a Crocodile and a Gharial are their Jaw line. Gharials have a sleek jaws than crocodile. Though both of them are dangerous for animals. We did not find any Gharials in open, as all of them were hiding inside the water in a separate enclosure. So we clicked what was available to us the crocodiles.
After unsuccessful attempt to please the gharials to come out of water, we continue our walk towards the Elephants site. But didn't clicked any as they get too familiar with us because of their recent attack in our village. Our next stop was the main attraction of nandankannan. It was the White Tiger. The big cat can be seen walking fericiously at the other side of the enclosure.
Birth of white tiger from normal coloured tigers has given a special place to Nandankanan over the world as one of the major host zoo for the white tigers
It's enclosure was too overcrowded as everyone was trying to take a flimpse of it. This was first time I was cursing myself for not owning a high end camera. The walk of this white beauty beast was incredible. It will make you fall in awe, full of attitude and elegance. All the wild big species of cats were placed one after the another. So making every visitor excited. After White Tiger it was the turn of :
The Leopard
The Lion & Lioness
The Tiger
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The iron fencing all along the enclosure is what disrupting us to the a clear shot. To the wild animals intelligence, they were roaming on the other side rather than the visitors side. This was little frustrating as we unable to get a good shot of any of them.
After covering a good distance so far, we get bit rusty and tired. Thanks to the Zoological official they made public sitting areas and drinking ater facility at every corner of the park. They looked quite besutiful and serene in middle of the Wildlife.
We rested a bit before moving ahead. As I was accompanied with my cousin, all the time are with us. We were not bounded by any tour guide or tour groups. We were exploring the park of our own.
The name "Nandankanan”, indicates the real beautiful spots par excellence on earth, where one can see the panoramic views of nature and appreciate the glamour and rightly so we found many such spot during our walk.
While appreciating the beautiful natural set up we keep going there many others animals like deer, ziraffe, elephants, foxes ets found during our walk but all of them too far away to be clicked. Enough for us to watch them with naked eye. Until we stopped at the Ostrich closure. They were in good numbers too close for us there was just a boundary wall that separate us.
Ostrich
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They were walking viciously lookong at us. But none other visitor were too interested to entertain them. May be because of some foul smell around it's closure. We too stayed for a while and moved. A big *Dinosour replica at one section of the park was waiting to welcome me.
The replica was entry gate towards the reptile zone inside the park. The huge legs of dinosaur was the entry gate and we went too through it. There were various snakes inside in different glass protection compartment. However we were suppose to lookmout for them, as they can be anywhere. The only reptile that we able to clicked was IGUANA
Bit yellowish in colour on grey stones was looking dangerous. They appears big. At first we assume it to be a statue but soon his head movement proved me wrong. They were standing tall looking at us then turn away. I never seen them before. Kind of my first experince.
This was my last enclosure. We already covered more than 4 km on foot and started feeling bit tired. Also it was getting dark, as we need to move to our next destination till night. But by that time we already had a good experince of the zoo and its Wildlife. It's not wring to say, we loved nandankannan
We said good bye to all the animals and moved towards the exist gate. Enroute enjoy the jumping jack monkey and few other small animals.
To visit nandankannan One needs to have a complete day. Especially to enjoy the jungle safari inside a closed vehicle and enjoying the open Wildlife. It is a good place for the kids to learn many new things. The zoo open for general public at 8.AM and closes at 5.PM The ticket window closes at 4.30PM. So a person get inside at 5PM can enjoy some intetesting tour at night.
