Croc around the clock

Last weekend was full of crocodiles on Animal Planet, with it being the "Croc around the clock" weekend. Animal Planet is the most watched channel at my place i.e at the times when Vidhya is away from the television, as she has a morbid dislike of reptiles. I don't understand why she doesn't like watching a pride of lions tear apart a gazelle or crocs attacking wilderbeests. All they are doing is having their lunch, pretty much like the cookery shows we have on other channels.

My appetite for action on animal planet was more than sated over the weekend with dozens of the "late and great" Steve Irwin's shows and lots of action from the crocs in the Nile and the Amazon.

Not one of the shows showed a tame croc. There was a show with a guy (also from Australia like Steve) explaining about the psychology of crocs and how easy it would be to manage them if one understood their behaviour. He did some pretty crazy stunts with the crocs, all the while explaining the rationale behind the actions. But, none were even close to what i saw in the Crocodile farm in Pattaya in Thailand. In the croc show, one guy puts his head inside the mouth of the croc! He carries the croc around on his shoulder and then orders it around. The croc didn't look drugged as it displayed its jaws' power by snapping at stuff and then suddenly turned gentle when he put his head inside its mouth.

At the end of the show, you could even have your photo taken with the croc, not with the croc at a fair distance, but with you sitting on the croc! After deliberating a lot, i found the guts to go ahead and get the photograph taken. Vidhya was not even remotely interested in doing so. Finally, after seeing that i was having fun with the croc, she decided to join in. Check out more such photos of "animal encounters" in the Thailand Photo Gallery.

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