After travelling for many hours and navigating checkpoints from Jaffna to Trincomalee in Sri Lanka, I was ready for a quiet street and a cold drink. You can imagine my shock, then, at seeing deer. Not in a forest, not in a park, but everywhere on the high street. They were casually strolling past shops, looking at fruit stalls with mild interest. It was as if the local council had hired them as very elegant, if slightly skittish, town criers. This was my proper introduction to Sri Lanka, a country where wildlife doesn’t read the ‘habitat’ signs. The real lords of the land, I soon learned, were the huge monitor lizards. You’d see them in Colombo, sunning themselves by fancy hotel ponds like scaly businessmen on a break. In Kandy, they’d amble across temple paths with an air of divine ownership. Even by the sea in Tangalle, one would be draped over a rock, looking like a discarded special effect from a dinosaur movie.
But Sri Lanka was just the opener. Trekking in the Himalayas, I once saw a bear. It didn’t amble or forage picturesquely. It motored. A blur of dark fur shot across the path ahead like a commuter late for a very important honey-related meeting. We stood frozen, not with fear, but with sheer awe at the velocity. Later, in the magical quiet of Jageshwar, we were huddled around a fire grate (it’s cold up there). One of the guys was idly poking a stick at the front of my room’s doorway. “Look at this,” he said, turning over a stone. Underneath was a scorpion, poised with a look that said, “I was here first, and I have a much better defence system.” I moved. Not dramatically, but with the deliberate, respectful speed of someone who now understands they are a guest in a scorpion’s front garden.
For sheer scale and drama, though, Norway wins. It’s a country that does wildlife on an epic, Ibsen-esque level. Giant sea eagles patrol the fjords like feathered fighter jets. Moose, which look like grumpy, ambulatory sofas on stilts, have a well-earned reputation for kicking people who annoy them—a reminder that size and a bad temper are a potent combination. Otters would bolt across remote roads on urgent, webbed-footed business. And of course, the breathtaking, black-and-white killer whales slicing through icy water, the undisputed CEOs of the Arctic food chain.
But the animal that truly gets around, the consistent co-star in my global travels, is the good old snake. They’ve turned up everywhere, from the back of a truck in my hotel in Chang Ria to the paddy fields of Kovalam. And in Trivandrum, I learned they don’t always get the final scene. I watched the eternal drama play out right on the street: a snake, minding its own business, brought out its arch-nemesis, the mongoose. It was nature’s most tense standoff, a flickering, furious ballet of fang and fury that had been running longer than any West End show.
You go travelling for the culture, the food, the landscapes. But you stay for the wildlife—the unexpected roommates, the high-speed forest commuters, and the ancient rivalries playing out in a back alley. They’re the reminders that no matter how far you go, you’re always visiting someone else’s home. And sometimes, that someone has eight legs, scales, or a kick that can send you into next week.
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