8. Of Spiders and Wild Colours

By the time I was up today, Bhansu and she had left. Caught my breakfast just in time and I was back online.

Then a whole lot of stuff happened over the net, which I dont really want to write about. Just about the bookings for paris and the train reservations and the Eurail passes and what not! Reserved accommodation for us in paris for the 1st and 2nd but we cant reserve for Amsterdam from here and also all the places there are booked full. It was pretty irritating, looking at the options, comparing with the others, looking at the paris metro map and stuff. :(

Anyway it was done finally and I wanted to leave, My whole morning had gone off in doing this stuff. I went to Wilhelma, wiki says 'It is Europe's only large combined zoological and botanical garden and is home to over 8,000 animals from over 1,000 different species and countless exotic plants from over 5,000 species.'

So I, being an animal lover, was pretty damn excited about it. It took me a while but I reached and it was marvelous. It was so unlike the zoos in India and very very beautiful. You cannot beat the Germans' attention to detail.





I had seen on the map that there was an insectarium here. And everyone knows how i get when I see spiders. Well this is dedicated to my bro, Antony and friend, Ashwin. I gathered my courage and I walked into that air-locked place. And from the moment i entered it was creepy. There were huge pics of Insects, spiders. There were glass cages on both my sides, leading the way further into the dark corridor. I walked in the perfect center, never getting too close to the glass cages.Had my hands and camera close to my body and my jacket wrapped tightly so that there are no openings through which they could crawl in... EuWW#W!! just the thought!

Anyway, i kept looking at the spiders. How I miss my non existent Cat! I will call my cat Isis, decided that! And finally I saw a cage on my right. Couldnt see anything in there, but i knew it was a spider. I had a feeling about this cage. I mean I knew it was the worst, I could just feel it. I stood there wondering if I should take a closer look to spot it. Finally, I tip toed to the cage, people were looking at me funny, but i guess they figured out :). I came close to the cage, about elbow length but i still couldn't see it. And there, I saw it, it was next to the inside edge, just sitting there, waiting, waiting, for a chance to get out and crawl on to me. The moment I saw it and I realised what it was, I was like back in the middle the corridor in like under a micro second. It was a Tarantula. just writing the word itself is icky. I was jittery man! Shit! It was some amazonian variety. And there was just a flimsy pane of glass between me and it. I stretched my arm out with the cam and took a pic. heh heh. cant help it, it came out badly but here it is. How I faced my fears!!

Can you see it?


Anyway I was out of there as quick as I can. So here it is, Ant & Ashwin! To Facing our fears!.. with a pane of glass in between. :)

I headed to this crazy Seal(The animal!) show. It was in German but I dont think you needed to know it as it wasnt that hard to understand. They had trained the seals and got them to do pattern jumps and dives and stuff with some play acting. Some of it was plain hilarious :) .

Thats Lucy!


Soon after, I was clicking away to glory at the other places and managed some that I think are really nice pics. Thanks here to Janki for letting me borrow the lens from her :D. Wouldnt have got these if it werent for that!

This bird should have been an Indian! :D






There was a point when I was walking when I heard a screech and a peacock just flew across, just in front of my face. It was too quick to get on my camera, but it landed a few meters from me, next to another one and as I was watching it turned around and spread his feathers. It was stunning. I was so freaking Excited!!! I stumbled with the cam but managed to get a few shots. But there is nothing like being here to see it.

Wish the background was better... but hey, you cant argue with nature :)


I wish the others could have joined me it would have been much more fun :) but hey! I didnt waste a day :D

I met up with the other two and finally got our eurail passes after shelling out loads of cash. :) Now we are set to go on our euro trip!

ciao