Guindy Children’s park & Chennai Snake park in Chennai
Timings: 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM, Weekly Holiday: Tuesday
Guindy Children’s park and Chennai Snake Park are a part of the Guindy National Park campus. They are a small extension of it, and is open to tourists. I guess the Guindy National park itself is a protected area and requires prior permission for tourists to visit, and it is one of the few national parks located within a major city in India. In case you don’t want to read everything below, just have a look at the above embedded short movie (1 min & 34 sec) I made on this place, to get an idea of what you can find here.
The Guindy Children’s park and Chennai Snake park are located in the same campus but have separate entrances. They are located just before the entry to Adyar/ OMR in the Sardar Patel Road, right next to Cancer Institute and IIT, Madras.
If you expect your experience to be similar to other national parks, where the animals are freely roaming around and you go around in a mobile vehicle (bus, van, etc), you’ll be disappointed! The Guindy Children’s park is more like a zoo than a national park! Most of the animals/ birds are kept inside cages, just like a zoo.
But there is one bigger enclosure (with a net on the top) where a lot of birds were kept and there was enough space for the birds to move around. Perhaps the enclosure was as big as 25 meters x 15 meters, if I remember it right. There was even a small pond in the center of this enclosure, where some of the birds were gladly swimming.
There is one more positive aspect – The spotted deer’s were freely roaming around the park! The deers were cool about people interacting with it and taking pictures. I saw one deer even in the parking lot! I wish the other animals were outside the cage too, and people could move around the park in a closed bus/ van. Its a good deal for both – think about it!
The play area, lawn and garden are very good and are being maintained quite neatly as well. The whole place is filled with rich fauna and there are so many varieties of trees/ plants/ shrubs where ever you look. There is a canteen just outside this park and some snacks are available there.
The Chennai snake park is just next to the Guindy children’s park campus but there is a separate entrance for this. There are two things you can expect to see here – Lot of snakes and lot of crocodiles (alligators).
There was one thing that was strangely common with all the crocodiles / alligators – They were not moving at all! At one place, I waited for a couple of minutes and one crocodile finally moved. Even the above crocodile with its mouth open was still for over a couple of minutes when I stood there, clicking its photo!
There is one chameleon in the above photo, which I was not able to identify even from three feet distance! This photo was taken after zooming from that close range. It seems there were four chameleon’s in this cage and there was a board challenging visitors to spot all of them. No, I was not able to!
Of course, there were a lot of snakes in this place, as well. After all, this was a Snake park. Perhaps the best exhibit of this park was its modern interactive center with many visual exhibits (pictures with back-lighting and videos on LCD monitors). That makes one wonder, if that is not enough? Why enclose animals, reptiles and birds inside cages when even jungles can be brought inside home (through TV/ Internet).
I wish more interactive centers replace zoos and cages very soon. Or at least, the animals and birds could be left in a protected natural surroundings where they are free to roam around and we could go through the premises in a closed bus or van. Its very much possible to do that in this place because there were no carnivorous animals (except the crocodiles) at all!
Destination Infinity
hmmm a lovely place that is 🙂 and i do agree with you animals shud be left in open space for sure … wud be more fun
and yeah some interactive centres will be great …
Make sure you remember to take me here when i come ot see you 🙂
Bikram’s
If we allow our kids to get entertained by looking at caged birds and animals, what message are we passing to them?
Destination Infinity
well its better then nothing , I dont have anything against zoos and placs like this provided they are cared for properly.
You never know a day will come when the only place to see these birds and animals will be in the zoos and no where else
But u have to show them. There is no question of passing messages. That u can do using mobiles. Now if your children want to see animals like lion and cobra, do you expect them to be moving scot free?
During school days,I’ve gone to Guindy and Vandalur zoo every year! Vandalur is a bigger park. Guindy is fully covered with trees and is very shady to walk around! Yes…Government can take steps to keep these animals in a wider open area, and put us in a caged path to look through them 🙂
Yeah, I have gone to Vandalur before many years too… Am planning to go back after a few days. Yeah, we deserve to be inside cages at least for a small time while going to visit the animals.
Destination Infinity
Looks like a lot of fun. Chennai has some good open spaces unlike in Mumbai. A zoo where animals can roam about freely is great. And very nice photos!
Guindy and adjoining areas have some open spaces (including IIT, Anna Univ, etc). But otherwise, Chennai is also relatively cramped. Only one animal was roaming around freely – Spotted deer! Somehow, people seem to like it and are able to trust other people to handle them properly!
Destination Infinity
I had been visiting this park since my school days! I went there last, some 4 years back! It looks cleaner and better now. When we went there, the whole area was full of plastic bags, though notices were everywhere not to bring plastics or throw it anywhere inside the park.
Our people feed the animals anything and everything. Some things are not good for them. I wonder how these deers are roaming even near the car park.
Good to know that it is better now.
I saw a youtube video where they were feeding popcorn to a deer! I think those deers (in the car park) had come from the adjoining reserve forest area. Not sure! This is the first time I am going here…
Destination Infinity
Nice park. And agreed about caged animals — though I’ve enjoyed Banerghatta safari at Bangalore that was quite a thrill. It’s safari concept mimics African safari — freeing of animals into its surroundings.
I’ve too heard good things about that Benarghatta park safari in Bangalore. I hope to visit it soon, lets see how the experience turns out.
Destination Infinity
That place is awesome, for its greenery and well-maintained spaces with some of the best that the eye can be treated to!
Thanks for this post.
Chennai is good for a system and method for things.
It is pretty rough and tough the first of everything. I remember my engineering and my job. All were difficult. And worse is I pass this to others. And I do not realize maybe.
Yeah, it was pretty well maintained. The park and the play area were wonderfully done, in fact.
Destination Infinity
loved your autobiography post (the last one on coins and stamp collection)
I had a neighbour (we lived in flats too) … and that uncle gave me a cover full of stamps and coins …. at that time, it was like a getting an antique unknown treasure in your hands 🙂 🙂
though I’ve now seen quite a few different currencies and handled them too, the awe on seeing a new currency still remains …. even today, I keep one bit of currency from whichever country’s currency I have
Actually, I tried to re-locate those coins for a considerable amount of time, but maybe they got lot during house-shifting! Yeah, I know we can be attached towards these possessions. 🙂
Destination Infinity
The childrens park was really interesting esp the deers being left free to walk around was novel but the snake park….brrrrr.
I’m sure ur blog friends have already awarded & tagged u…please accept the Versatile award from me also :-D.
Thanks for the award and the tag. I will do this tag soon.
Destination Infinity
we gave it a miss when we visited Chennai. thanks for sharing this one. you took us through it very nicely like a virtual tour 🙂
Did you go to the Vandaloor Zoo? I don’t remember seeing them on your travelogues…
Destination Infinity
naah. didn’t go to vandaloor.
this one as u said is bang in the center of the city yet we avoided going in for lack of time
Children like children’s park. But that does not mean a snake likes snake park. Snake likes to be independent and does not want to waste time because free food is there.
Exactly. None of us would like that too… High time authorities understand this and allow them to be in their natural surroundings…
Destination Infinity
have you been to Bannerghatta national park here?
No, I need to go there sometime. I’ve heard a lot of good things about that park. During my next visit, I’ll try to make it.
Destination Infinity