No you can’t get friendly with a crocodile…
Our driver—I’ll just call him S for reasons to be revealed in their own post once I’ve calmed down and stopped kissing the ground—wanted an early start to get clear of Bangalore before the real traffic hit. Jaya, who never met an early start she didn’t love, wanted us to be out the door by six. Janine and I just wanted to get horizontal and sleep through the alarm and possibly the next day or two. But after knowing each other for more than forty years, the three of us have worked out a foolproof approach to travel: we do what Jaya tells us. It’s simple, requires absolutely no effort on our part, and it works. Always. We left at six.
We’d only been on the road long enough to get clear of Bangalore before pulling into Kamat, a beautiful roadside restaurant with open-air pavilions sheltering under trees. The hostess sized us up and informed us we wanted the full buffet. Jaya sized up the line of people waiting, and informed her we’d be ordering a la carte. Surprisingly quickly, our food appeared and my tastebuds fell in love. There might be a better breakfast than a deep-fried spicy donut vada served up on a fresh banana leaf, followed by the slightly tangy sweetness of glistening lace-swirled jelabi, and accompanied by coffee as the day brightens under the trees. But if so, I haven’t had it yet.
On the road again, we headed for Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary north of Mysore. We’d barely cleared the entry when all three of us yelled “STOP!” Driver S reluctantly pulled over and the three of us piled out on our respective quests. Jaya had seen a tiny bird who needed spotting. Janine had seen a statue of Shiva in midstream which needed photographing. I’d seen a herd of goats scrambling over rocks and banks which needed to be amateurishly captured on my phone camera.
— Goats. Because, you know—goats. (Stop 4)
Our entry fees duly paid, we wandered down to the water where we found rowboats waiting to take us on a tour of the sanctuary—at an additional fee-times-five for foreigners, of course. As the boat moved away from the dock, the ranger/rower pointed at a log and said a number of words, one of which sounded suspiciously like “crocodile“. I was just begging Jaya to tell me that meant large toothless bird in the local dialect when the log we were approaching opened one eye and grinned at us. I felt my need to view any more birds decrease with each stroke of the oars.
The family behind us had no such doubts. As the smallest kid ran back and forth rocking the boat, the father laughed, the middle kid demanded to know if that was a real crocodile, and the mother told him, “Why don’t you stick your hand in the water and see what happens?” I can only suppose either she thought her three kids were one too many, or they had started their vacation with several additional kids and were still winnowing the numbers down to acceptable odds.
I assume there were birds and bats around, but frankly, I was too busy watching for crocodiles to pay attention. I counted sixteen. No, seriously. Sixteen crocodiles that I could spot. But that might not have included stealth crocodiles lurking under the boat waiting for that kid to stick his hand in. I’ve seen Jaws…
Several trees were home to flocks of large birds including egrets, storks, and heron. There was even a tree full of bats. But I was too busy measuring the distance back to the dock—and wondering if I could make it while the crocodiles chowed down on that kid with his hand in the water—to really pay attention, so there could have been lots more bird-related activity going on.
Actually, I do know there were flocks of amazing birds and things out there because Jaya and Janine are made of much sterner stuff, and they happily snapped away several photos which I saw after we made it back to the docks about a year and a half later (ten minutes by my phone clock).
But I was too busy trying to put distance between us and those crocodiles, and explaining to Jaya that the sign she just noticed for an even longer tour of the croc-infested lake was a mistake and should be ignored at all costs.
And that was just our morning. Wait until you hear what happened in the afternoon!
Want to hear more about our adventures in India?
Your Camels Are Here (2 book series) Kindle Edition
by Barb Taub (Author) , Jayalakshmi Ayyer (Photographer) , Janine Smith (Photographer)
beth said:
Your adventures never fail to amuse me )
LikeLiked by 1 person
barbtaub said:
SOME of my adventures are more amusing after than during…
LikeLiked by 1 person
beth said:
Such is most of life ))
LikeLike
quiall said:
Crocodiles have such nice pearly white teeth, I wonder what they use for toothpaste. Or who.
LikeLiked by 1 person
barbtaub said:
Somehow I didn’t like to get close enough for that conversation!
LikeLiked by 1 person
quiall said:
Smart move.
LikeLike
Lynette d'Arty-Cross said:
I chortled and chortled at your description of the family with the croc-handled kid. 😀 Yikes. That’s what you call tough love.
LikeLiked by 1 person
barbtaub said:
Tough, and potentially icky–not to mention the mess all over the minivan.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Limp Cabbage and Soggy Chips said:
God, I’ve been craving jilabis and I read this post. Dang pandemic times that precludes ordering. Dang my lack of culinary skills.
I live in a wooded area in the heart of a metrop city. It’s wooded because it is a university campus, and is protected by the forestry department. There’s a small lake in our campus that used to have crocodiles much before I moved in here. There are homes on the banks of the lake and more than once have these reptiles been found to want entertaining in the living rooms.
Of course, now we only have other forms of slithering reptiles of varying sizes. I once found one hanging from the latch (how did it get there?) when I opened my front door in the morning. I’ve learned to ignore the reptiles and focus on the bird song now.
LikeLiked by 1 person
barbtaub said:
Yay to the jilabis but not so much to the reptiles.
LikeLiked by 1 person
pollymorse said:
Um, crocodiles? I don’t do crocodiles. They might see breakfast when they look at me. You are much braver than I!!!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
barbtaub said:
NOT braver. There was no way I would have been in that boat if anyone had mentioned the crocs. But the funny thing is that my bird-obsessed friends Janine and Jaya don’t remember the crocodiles at all.
LikeLiked by 1 person
alexcraigie said:
You’ve just bumped those two books up my TBR list! Still chuckling.
LikeLiked by 1 person
barbtaub said:
Hope you enjoy them!
LikeLike
Jennie said:
I’d love to see a kingfisher bird up close, but not a crocodile!
LikeLiked by 1 person
barbtaub said:
I COMPLETELY agree! And the thing is, the kingfisher wasn’t anywhere near that boat. We could have taken his photo, and never gone near a rowboat in a lake full of crocodiles. What were we thinking?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jennie said:
Yes, what were you thinking? 😅
LikeLiked by 1 person
amreade said:
I loved Do Not Wash Hands in Plates and I’m currently reading Please Don’t Ask for Extra Glass. What an incredible thing it must be to travel with such good friends to places that are so different from what you’re accustomed to. I love the photos, too!
LikeLiked by 1 person
barbtaub said:
So glad you like the books! And some days of travel with friends are just a bit less incredible and a bit more terrifying…
LikeLiked by 1 person
noelleg44 said:
What a fun post, Barb. I enjoyed the outing! I remember sitting on the edge of a deep pit at a tourist reserve in Kenya, where they threw out pieces of meat to a horde of crocs every evening, and withdrawing my legs as soon as they showed up.
Never smile at a crocodile
Never tip your hat and stop to talk awhile!
LikeLiked by 1 person
barbtaub said:
Wonder how many tourists they lose at that Kenya reserve each year?
Clear the aisle but never smile at Mister Crocodile!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Darlene said:
Never make eye contact with a crocodile either. Yikes, that would have been scary.
LikeLiked by 1 person
barbtaub said:
All I could think was the Hub getting a special delivery of a finger packed in ice, along with a note explaining that it was all that was left…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mary Smith said:
I loved this post. I’ve been on that lake. I was happily trailing my fingers in the water until the boatman explained why I shoudn’t.
LikeLiked by 1 person
barbtaub said:
I was seriously tempted to ask if his name was Charon or if he had a dog named Cerberus—but I was afraid he’d answer in the affirmative.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Davida Chazan said:
I hope you don’t mind that I put a link to this post on my Throwback Thursday link party. Here’s the link to this month’s party, which will end on the 29th, and a new one will begin for May and early June.
LikeLike
Davida Chazan said:
Oops – here’s the link https://fresh.inlinkz.com/party/8809066b25f34f0ba0219f71e403f3b4
LikeLike
quiall said:
Smart move.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pooja G said:
I absolutely love birds but crocodiles not so much…
LikeLiked by 1 person
barbtaub said:
There were birds there? I really didn’t notice…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pooja G said:
I wouldn’t either if those crocodiles were near me 😂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Time Traveler of Life said:
Even with the evil eyes of the Croc’s your trip was wonderfully colorful. Glad you survived the lunch special the Croc’s missed. Great pictures! Thanks for posting.
LikeLiked by 1 person
barbtaub said:
The food was awesome. The croc’s not so much…
LikeLike
Time Traveler of Life said:
Reblogged this on Time Traveler on the road of Life.
LikeLiked by 1 person
barbtaub said:
Thanks so much for the reblog! We travellers need to stick together.
LikeLike