My first trip to Vaishnodevi was unimpressive. Climbing was hard, and it only served to highlight how badly out of shape I was, while my in-laws managed to cope so much better. Further, I hadn’t quite realized that the cave experience wouldn’t be the same as I had imagined, since the original cave was only opened at certain times a year, and that we only entered a newly created tunnel, one far easier to access, and hence more manageable with the crowds that thronged the mountain shrine. The resulting experience at the shrine, for barely a fraction of a second, hardly compared to what I had expected / imagined / heard about. So, for me, Vaishnodevi was like any other temple, nothing to write home about, something that was reflected (though not explicitly mentioned) in the blog post I wrote then.
I remember the first time I saw an advertisement for the Regional Science Centre at Tirupati; I was stunned that a temple town like Tirupati would have one! On second thoughts I realized that it was probably for the locals, an effect of all the development happening around. As I saw the ads more and more often on my recurring trips, I was curious, and eager to take a look, especially when I heard about their pre-historic section. This was one place I certainly wanted to take Samhith to, on this trip, sort of to compensate for all the temples I was dragging him to. As it turned out, the science centre happened to be very near the zoo, so we combined a visit to both.
We spent almost half the day at the zoo and were prepared to spend the rest of the day at the science centre. It had, after all, a huge indoor section which included a 3D screen, a science park outdoors, as well as the prehistoric section, which is what we were keen on!
Unfortunately, we were just leaving the Zoo when it started pouring, and as it turned out, we were the only visitors to the centre, which meant that the 3D show was off. That put us off going indoors. We did have umbrellas with us, and so we gave the science park a miss – it is exactly like the Nehru Science Centre in Mumbai, so we didn’t really miss anything – and headed over to the prehistoric section. Umbrellas in hand, we wove our way around all the exhibits and headed over to the end of the park where we could see a dinosaur towering over the other exhibits. Instead of wasting more words describing something which Samhith loved, and I am sure most kids will, too, let me take you on a tour through the entire pre-historic section.
This section begins with a display of prehistoric men, showing the evolution of humans. Here they are….
Samhith made an interesting observation on seeing this. He thinks the bust of the completely evolved human (the last one) resembles Voldemort!! For those of you who are wondering what I am talking about, Voldemort is the arch villain in the Harry Potter series….. Go, look up a pic of Voldemort on the net and tell me what you think!!
After a section on Neanderthals, the rest of the museum has models of prehistoric creatures of all kinds… Samhith absolutely loved them, and we spent more than an hour in the pouring rain, walking along and trying to guess which animal would have evolved from which one!!
By the time we were through, we were just too tired, and had no choice but to return. However, there is much left to see in the centre, and maybe we shall return again sometime!
Information:
Regional Science Centre is about 10 Km from Tirupati Railway Station. Buses ply from the station to the science centre at regular intervals. An auto charges Rs. 200 for a trip to and fro.
A sure and interesting place for children.
ReplyDeleteLovely pics and about the Voldemort, what an observation!
ReplyDeleteThanking you once more for sharing these informations
ReplyDeleteHi, Bro
ReplyDeleteYour Blog is So nice and great and he gives us a good information...
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Hi, Bro
ReplyDeleteYour Blog is So nice and great and he gives us a good information...
Thanks Again.
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This looks like a great place...
ReplyDeleteHave you visited the science centre in Kolkata, its huge and very beautiful with different sections with live models...
I will visit this the next time I am there!!
Looks like a nice place!!
ReplyDelete@Chitra: It sure is an interesting place.. for kids as well as us... makes a nice change from all the temples :)
ReplyDelete@Mridula: he is obsessed with the Harry Potter movies right now, so everything he sees gets connected to one of the characters...
@Aswathi Babu: Its a pleasure to share all about these places...
@Flexi Tours: thank you!
@Arti: Never been to Kolkata! but the Bombay one is great too...and the delhi one is huge... visited it as a kid!
@Aravind: It is! u should go sometime!
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Excellent coverage of a science park of Regional Science Centre, Tirupati. I appreciate the flow and coverage like a story. Gudos.
ReplyDeleteMani