This photo exhibition tells about my visit to a famous crocodile park and its inhabitants in East India. The park was called The Madras Crocodile Bank and it is located in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
When I visited that crocodile park, it was February, and the air on the East coast of India was scorching hot for a North European travel blogger. However, the numerous trees in that crocodile park with their shade provided shelter from the sun and allowed the Western tourist to do some photography of the beasts.
Don’t know was it due to the heat of the midday that the crocodiles were mostly relaxed and rested alone or in a bunch with their fellows, dipping into their poison-green-coloured swimming water every once in a while. The reason for that weird bathing water color of theirs remained a mystery to me.
A board in the park told us where in the world each species of a crocodile came from, and in general crocodiles seemed to be found in southern North America, northern South America, Africa, India, southwest Asia, and northern Australia. In India, the map said there were three types of crocodiles. Those species were the mugger from South India, gharial from North India and saltwater crocodile from North East India, and all those species seemed to be found in this Madras Crocodile Park also. Even the northern gharial crocodile with a cake on top of its nose, as you can see in the pictures. I was a little surprised to find out that these water beasts exist even in northern India.
The are also other animals than crocodiles in the Madras Crocodile Park, namely lizards, snakes, birds and incredibly cuddly turtles. You can see them also in this photo exhibition.
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About photographing the crocodiles
The crocodile park had warning signs in English, Hindi and Tamil which warned the viewers not to put their hands through the safety net to the other side where the crocodiles were. However, in order to get good photos, the camera lens had to be pressed completely on this wire mesh so that the mesh would not come into the pictures. Because of this I was able to experience a few exciting moments while photographing these beasts in an otherwise safe park. In addition and strangely enough, my travel companion lost the sunglasses in this park. I wander do the crocodiles eat sunglasses then…
The Crocodile Park today
I visited this Madras Crocodile Bank crocodile park a few years ago, and as I now inquired if the park was still in function, I found out on a Google search results page that almost all of Tamil Nadu’s crocodile parks were said to be closed or temporarily closed. The reason for the closure was probably covid19.
Fortunately, however, I saw the trouble of opening the crocodile park website without just believing in the Google search results, as the website declared that their crocodile park had opened again more than ten days ago.
Read and see more travel in India from INDIVUE – Trip to India
Have you personally visited this crocodile park or any other Indian crocodile park? Have you seen crocodiles in the wild? Share your experiences or comment my photos in the comments section below, which is open the next two weeks!
Read about this Indian crocodile park also in Finnish.
