Neyyar Wildlife Sanctuary: Crocodiles and Deer (July 29, 2023)

As we were driving through the wildlife sanctuary, a lady waved us down and encouraged us to book a boat ride to see more of the animals.  At the ticket office, we are told that we should book a private boat trip as they are not running the group boat.  Marshall and I think we have "sucker" written all over our faces.  Anyway, we book the private boat and convince Shaji to go with us.


After we left in the private boat, they decided to allow the group boat to go out and brought a group of Indians to the site as we were leaving. In the end, it was like 25 dollars and the boat driver and Marshall started talking about fishing and sting rays and boats so he took us on a tour of most of the lake. Well worth it.


Marshall and I are walking down to the boat.  The wildlife workers all had on Camouflage outfits.  Marshall decided that he wanted the boat driver job if he moves here. 

We really enjoyed the ride and the lake is so pretty.   


 They drove us to a section of the sanctuary that had a few animals.  We were able to see two more elephants.  An adult (33 yrs. old) and a young elephant (7 yrs old).  The young one's mother was killed by a tiger so it was rescued and brought here.




We saw them feed the crocodiles.  There were multiple crocodiles in the pen but they eat every 4 days so only the one who is hungry will eat the food. The others seemed disinterested.





Steve Irwin had some role in setting up this place and they dedicated this to him.  They took our picture in front of the monument.

There is also a deer sanctuary.  They try to keep the males and females separated to help control the numbers but the males keep jumping over the fence.  You are not allowed to hunt deer here.  Big fines. 
The original tribe people are allowed to live on this land. We saw a tribal lady walking and the ranger was explaining this whole deal to us. We asked if we could go a bit off the tour path and see more.  They had created a shrine nearby that we went to see.  The red shrine is dedicated to a male god.  The small area on the right is dedicated to a female goddess.
 
Shrine to a male god. It is always just a little bit cooler when you go off piste. We were in the middle of the jungle by a cool lake and the breeze was making the bamboo knock like a super sized wind chime. One of those magical moments.

These birds dive into the water and catch fish.  They enjoyed bathing in the sun on this rock.



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