Indian Columbus

When you think about  Mysore , the heritage city of India, you cannot avoid thinking about two great places – Mysore Zoo and Mysore Palace. Mysore zoo is one of India's oldest and most beautiful zoos. The King of Mysore, Chamaraja Wodeyar, established Mysore zoo in his Summer Palace, also called Pleasure Palace, in 1892 CE. In the beginning, the zoo was established with just 10 acres. The King kept increasing its area and opened it for the public. Whenever he traveled to other countries or other parts of India, he used to bring rare animals to this zoo. After independence, the Indian Government took control of this zoo and extended the area further. The century-old zoo, officially called Chamarajendra Zoological Gardens, has a lot of rare animals even today. You can find almost all the animals and birds such as tigers, elephants, monkeys, deer, bears, leopards, lions, peacocks, snakes, crocodiles, etc. here. Giraffe, chimpanzee, African elephant, and various colorful birds a...

Chennai  has some interesting places which cannot be found anywhere else in India. The Crocodile Bank is one such place.  Located at around 42 kms from the city center, the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust was founded in 1976 CE, and a public trust manages it. The Bank was established for the conservation and study of endangered crocodiles. When it was started, it hardly had 30 crocodiles. Now, there are around 2,400 crocodiles belonging to 14 different species. Over the years, the crocodile bank has supplied a lot of crocodiles to various zoos in India.  Besides crocodiles, the Bank also has 12 endangered species of turtles and tortoises, five species of snakes, two pythons, and some water monitor lizards.  You can get a close view of crocodiles live in the wild as they are housed in enclosures very similar to their natural habitat. I am not sure if you can find many such crocodiles belonging to different species anywhere else in India.   If you are lucky, you c...