Day 137 (Tue 21 Nov) - Bhubaneswar

Very special day this, as 37 years ago Sarb was delivered to an unsuspecting world.

Jo had been secretly hoarding birthday cards and gifts brought out by her mum when we met in Goa. Sarb was soon busy opening his cards and gifts that included a fab new hat. Since he'd lost his old one not so long ago this was most especially welcome.

Had breakfast downstairs and met Neil at 10am to go to the NamadKaran zoo.

We all had a fantastic day. The big cats were beautiful. Although the tiger that took a particular shine to a little boy was a little scary. Whenever the boy moved the tiger would track his movements from the other side of the fence, its eyes locked on the kid. There was murder in the tigers' eyes!

As we walked round some elephants came lumbering past us.

Went on the rickety cable car that took us over the crystal clear lake. Very pretty.

Decided we'd have a go on the the pedalos (ie. plastic school chairs simply welded onto a bit of flatboard and then put on floats) where we almost got stuck in the reeds as Sarb tried to get a photo of a bird.

Had a great lunch at the zoo and then went on the toy train. We waited for about 30 mins for what turned out to be a 15 minute ride that basically went in a straight line between some trees. Not exactly a great view.

At about 5ish we waited around the lake, passing the hippo pool, for the elephants to be taken for their daily dip. Quite an amazing sight as they splashed around in the water, clearly enjoying it.

Got back to the hotel for a little power nap before meeting up with Neil again. We headed off to the Mayfair Lagoon hotel. This is situated on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar and is its premier venue. The grounds are amazing and even include a real plane in the grounds.

Had a fantastic dinner with a number of Neals friends that had decided to join us for the day.