I’m back in India on business, but only for a short while this time around. One of my colleagues who accompanied us had not been to India before, 
so we had fun showing her around and watching her explore the city. It was fun listening to her get excited about traffic and cows and cows in traffic.
We had a big meeting on Thursday with a client and then took Friday off to see some sites. First, we went to Bannerghatta National Park. We arrived early, so we passed the time wandering through the local zoo.
Then we boarded a bus to take into the wildlife preserve in the hopes of spotting elephants, tigers, lions, or cheetahs. The bus was a rickety old thing that looked like it would topple at the slightest hint of a curve or bump, but that didn’t stop our driver from careening around a bumpy and rutted road that had all the passengers hoping for a quick death. On more than one occasion it occurred to me that should the bus roll over, it was not in a condition to protect us from the elephants, tigers, lions, or cheetahs which we were so hopefully to see.
We did manage to survive and we did manage to see lions and tigers, including some white tigers which were, not surprisingly, white. Tigers look surprisingly cuddly, but my recommendations to my colleagues to go pet one went unheeded.
The next day we jumped in the car and headed out to the Dodda Aalada Mara, or Big Banyan Tree. This is the fourth-largest tree in India, and covers over three acres. The tree is inhabited by wild monkeys who are alarmingly comfortable with human presence and are perfectly willing to let you get close enough to take photos of them. There were babies who were trying to escape their mothers, youngsters picking fights with elders and everything else that would demonstrate we did, in fact, evolve from these smelly, furry little honkers.
