The First Road Trip - Jungle Safari

Bhima...Yup thats what she's called
Originally uploaded by Rohit.Jayakaran

Its been a while since I have blogged...but since I have no good reason as to why I have not written about my half adventures, I am not even gonna apologise. Ok...lets get to the adventure that started a series of road trips in what is now know an 'Bhima'.

For those of you who are not aware of what I am talking about, I am referring to my Gypsy, better known as BHIMA...yes that's her name...yes HER...just to confuse people. You will see her in this photograph...Yes yaar I have placed her next to the German Push Cart just to make her look nice and sexy in comparison...it works...come on...be honest.

Ok...now to the trip...as you can see the photograph looks like an early morning shot on top of a hill. It looks like that most probably because I did take the photograph on top of a hill at an undisclosed location in Karnataka...we were high above sea level...in fact about 4000ft above sea level to exaggerate just a little bit…ok….a lot. This was the first road trip I took Bhima on along with two friends of mine Satish and Soma.

I was hoping this would be a jungle safari and as you can see the photograph of the Rhino, it looks almost like that. Unfortunately this is far...really really far from the truth. Soma insisted we head to Mysore...and once we got there he kept eating my head till we took him to the Mysore Zoo. Hence the safari-like look is as fake as Aishwaria Rai's smile on the Red carpet.

Bhima...the name that inspired a Gypsy
Originally uploaded by Rohit.Jayakaran

The good thing that did come out of the trip to the ZOO (Which I refused to pay for) was the fact that we leant that the Rhino's name in the Zoo is Bhima...and since I have huge Ceat Tyres on my Jeep, we decided to name my darling 4X4 - BHIMA....and hence the name. Yes I know...long story...kind of pointless...but then again so was the last cricket match between India and Australia this week...considering that we had already lost the series and we playing for PRIDE??? PRIDE??? So what were the Boys in Blue playing for before that??? Food??? Money??? Their Girl friends???

Anyways...since I did admit that 'I WENT TO A ZOO'...I might as well tell you about stuff that I saw there...

The Mysore Zoo is actually quite a nice place. They take good care of the animals and if you are lucky you may just see a peacock showing off...we did...and it was wonderful. What however amused me about the whole zoo was this "Sponsorship" of Animals. The funda is that you can sponsor an animal for a month, 6 months or a few years, and in exchange there is a small board is put up outside the cage that says, "This Animal has been adopted by Mr.XTY" .

Mysore Zoo
Originally uploaded by Rohit.Jayakaran

So...as we walked along following Soma and his happy "I'm in a Zoo Smile", we came across the Bear's cage...BTW...Soma convinced Satish and me that the Mysore Zoo has Polar Bears. Even if I did believe him for a fleeting second, I gave up all hope of any possible polar bears just outside the zoo when I was approached by a man in a push cart selling me home made ice-cream for Rs.2.50. Anyways I digress...so we came to the Bear Cage...and I was thinking...wouldn't it be nice if the Bear was sponsored/adopted by the UB Group, the company that owns KINGFISHER...

The board could then read, "Kingfisher Bear"...he he