A Picture is Worth A Thousand Bats

The Botanical Garden BEFORE Cyclone Thane.

This entry is a nod to the wonder and power of nature. We are in Pondicherry, heading back to the Chennai area. It's nice to be somewhat familiar with a city. After hours of internet, we decide to visit the botanical garden here. It is 22 acres of lush green and flowering walks, but when we arrived, we found something else entirely.  Cyclone Thane had hit Pondicherry just prior to our original arrival. We had seen little evidence of the damage that the cyclone had caused during our first visit, but strolling through the garden, the destruction was hard to ignore.

The entrance of the garden AFTER the storm.

The "Dancing Fountain" no longer dances. The pond has been emptied so it could be cleaned out. This is the bottom of the pool.

Me in the yellow skirt talking to a family in the garden. They were gathering wood for their fire at home. You can see the bent and broken trees around us.

At the top of this picture, you can just make out the outline of wings. Is it a bird? A plane? No those flying creatures are bats, and if one examines the picture closely, they can see that there are thousands of bats hanging from the tree on the far right. We stood and craned our heads upward, and listened to them screech. They were the largest bats either of us had ever seen, and the greatest number we had ever seen at one time. I apologize we don't have a zoom on the camera.

Later, after the botanical garden, we went for a stroll around town and were lucky enough to encounter this creature. The blurry handsome fellow in the picture is Lakshmi the blessing elephant. He was standing outside one the central temples, decked out in jewelry, wearing decorative marks on his head and ears. If you gave him a coin, he would raise his trunk and bless you. He was quite large and had freckles all over the bridge of his trunk, and the tips of his ears.  It was the closest I had ever been to an elephant. Many of the locals stood around donating money, being blessed, and feeding him handfuls of sweet grass and fruits. The elephant headed Indian God is named Ganesha. He is a popular deity, and considered the remover of obstacles, and the Lord of beginnings. After all the chaos, we probably needed a blessing or two.  I carry a picture of Ganesha in my backpack as we travel. Whatever helps. To new beginnings.