FIRST VISIT TO YALA FOR 2017 IN MAY....

This time around this was my first visit to Yala for 2017 which was quite unusual. I went with my family and the family we got acquainted in Vietnam for a day trip and we were quite lucky to have seen quite a number of birds and animals.




This baby Elephant who was with its family went back to the stream alone and had fun in the water.

This brown Fish Owl was detected on a tree very close by and allowed us to take enough pictures and did not mind.

A female Indian Robin

This Asian Paradise Flycatcher was dipping into the water many times may be to clean itself.

A changeable Hawk Eagle

We were lucky as we saw this Leopard around 7 am and for a couple of minutes only our Jeep was in the vicinity allowing us to take a few shots.

This cub would have been days old and was checking its ability to  move.

A serpent Eagle

May be a friendly fight...??

Ba-ya Weaver bird and a nest

A Rudy Mongoose

A pied Cookoo

The famous Tusker "GAMUNU" .Though everyone wanted to see  him  precautions were taken not to get very close as he is famous for putting the trunk inside the vehicles and scaring the people.

 Black Turn

 Orange Breasted Pegion

 Eurasian Hoope

VISIT TO VIETNAM.......

I went to Vietnam on a short tour in the first week of April 2017 with my family. As we went on a package tour, there were four other families as well. It was a very interesting tour and we were able to see many natural scenic sites .




The Ho Chi Minh Square- This is in Ha Noi and Ho Chi Ming's Toomb is preserved inside

A Buddhist temple nearby..

Famous WATER PUPPET show

Hạ Long Bay (Vietnamese: Vịnh Hạ Long, IPA: [vînˀ hâːˀ lawŋm] ( listen)) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and popular travel destination in Quảng Ninh Province, Vietnam. Administratively, the bay belongs to Hạ Long City, Cẩm Phả town, and is a part of Vân Đồn District. The bay features thousands of limestonekarsts and isles in various shapes and sizes. Hạ Long Bay is a center of a larger zone which includes Bái Tử Long Bay to the northeast, and Cát Bà Island to the southwest. These larger zones share a similar geological, geographical, geomorphological, climate and cultural characters.

Hạ Long Bay has an area of around 1,553 km², including 1,960–2,000 islets, most of which are limestone. The core of the bay has an area of 334 km² with a high density of 775 islets.^[1] The limestone in this bay has gone through 500 million years of formation in different conditions and environments. 

PICTURESQUE......

A Black Kite

....and breathtaking..

Stalactites and Stalagmites in a cave in one of the Islands...

 

 

Another Buddhist Temple

Ninh Bình city is a small city in the Red River Delta of northern Vietnam; it is the capital of Ninh Bình Province.

Tràng An Scenic Complex, a newly discovered area for tourism with stunning and untouched beauty. Recently Titan Crew, aka King Kong movie making crew has visited Trang An for some of the most important scenes in "Kong: the Skull Island", on air in 2017.

Tam Cốc-Bích Động, with a numerous other caves made up a spectacular region for boat touring and cave exploring.

Another temple close by...

A Mountain Goat...


From Ha Noi , we flew to Ho Chi Minh which was earlier known as Saigon.

The Opera House


The tallest building with 60 stories and a helipad..





Old Post Office Building...



The presidential Palace....

Formerly the Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes, the War Remnants Museum is consistently popular with Western tourists. Few museums anywhere convey the brutal effects of war on its civilian victims so powerfully. 

The Mekong Delta (Vietnamese: Đồng bằng Sông Cửu Long "Nine Dragon river delta"), also known as the Western Region (Vietnamese: Miền Tây) or the South-western region (Vietnamese: Tây Nam Bộ) is the region in southwestern Vietnam where the Mekong River approaches and empties into the sea through a network of distributaries. The Mekong delta region encompasses a large portion of southwestern Vietnam of 39,000 square kilometres (15,000 sq mi).^[1] The size of the area covered by water depends on the season.

We went in this boat across the river which is quite wide and had lunch in one of the restaurants on the other river bank.

 We also went in one of the canoes down a stream which are very common.

The tunnels of Củ Chi are an immense network of connecting underground tunnels located in the Củ Chi District of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam, and are part of a much larger network of tunnels that underlie much of the country. The Củ Chi tunnels were the location of several military campaigns during the Vietnam War, and were the Viet Cong's base of operations for the Tết Offensive in 1968.

The tunnels were used by Viet Cong soldiers as hiding spots during combat, as well as serving as communication and supply routes, hospitals, food and weapon caches and living quarters for numerous North Vietnamese fighters. The tunnel systems were of great importance to the Viet Cong in their resistance to American forces, and helped to counter the growing American military effort.

Some of the booby traps are re done to show the visitors...

After a week  full of  pleasure and fun  ,flying back home...