Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Trip to BANDIPUR!!!

I am back again… Previous week was a mix of good and the sad times. Sad, coz, one of my nieces (6 months old baby, my cousin's daughter) got admitted to a hospital and while I am writing this, she is still in hospital in Bangalore. Such a tiny body was tortured with so many needles. One for putting on the drip and rest to suck her blood for endless tests. I must not speak more about it else I will end up crying. But it is depressing to see a baby suffer so much... I can only pray for her early and fast recovery.
The better part of the week was when our cousin sisters visited us from Delhi. We had already booked our rooms at a resort at Bandipur National Park- MC Resorts. The point to be noted about the whole trip was that we were always moving on time. Decided to drive by our own car with our very own in-house budding singer- Nimit, singing as badly nicely as the original singers of those long forgotten Punjabi songs… Picked up another cousin of ours from Mysore and reached our destination in good time…

Carom Time

MC resorts turned out to be a comfortable place, not a luxuries resort but a quiet and a clean one. The staff was polite and the rooms were spacious and nice. The meals were not extravagant, as in, not a very long list of dishes but tasty and filling. After many years probably played carom and after many months played TT (none of us tried our hands on chess, since we were on a vacation and not supposed to use our brainsJ). The setting was nice…. Play by the pool side.
First sight of the Elephants
After lunch, we were left to ourselves and so we played cards and then it was time for the Jungle Safari… Safari can be done by their Jeeps or the side-open buses. For jeeps, I guess, you need to book early and/or pay more. So, we mounted on the bus and started on our safari. I was anyways not expecting to see the tiger/s but as soon as we entered into the jungle, there was a sense of excitement. Looking curiously behind the bushes as if I would be the first person to spot the tiger (and grab the 15-seconds of fame).But I have no idea how a species named DEERS can always be found in any forest easily posing for camera!!! So, as usual, they were our first encounters. Then we spot the Indian Elephants, behind the bamboos. The driver and the conductor instructed us to remain quite…. Shhhh…. But, hello, the bus itself was making noise…
Anyways, they were standing at quite a distance (I had to use the zoom feature of my digicam) but as soon as they started flapping their big ears, an annoying family started freaking out and the lady was literally close to breaking down and pleading the driver, "bhaiyya, chalo, wapis chalo, bahut dekh liya haathi".. I mean, c'mon, you have come all the way down here to watch only deer and peacocks???!!! Oh, btw, she was (they were) all so excited on spotting the peacocks and the birds and yes, her voice specially was very annoying…

DEERS


Bison


A Family of Elephants

This Elephant came very close to our bus

The othe r man stood up after some time and almost shouted at the driver since the poor fellow was just doing his job- show as many wild animals as possible for full value for money… "chalo wapis, hum kab tak haathi dekhte rahenge, humare saath bachche hai, chalo wapis (resort)!!!". Uncle, if you were accompanied with kids, you could have chosen to stay at the resort or even better, could have stayed at home only… Moreover, it would be great if you let the kids see those animals which they have seen only in their books. Anyways, we saw elephants, bison, lots of deer, PEACOCK, kingfisher and that's all I think. Got the chance to see an elephant very closely, playing with mud… Once back, we were welcomed with refreshing tea, coffee and biscuits and then again, the cards time… Dinner was also simple but nice…
 Then we tried to show off our guts and sat by the pool side and started discussion about ghosts, spirits, our beliefs about them or any incident… That's when we could hear an elephant. It must not have been very close to our resort but not very far also… Immediately, I started scanning the dark bushes by the boundary wires of our resort to make sure that in case Mr. Elephant is very close by, we get ample time to run for our lives J it was cold by the time and we shifted to the bonfire place to play Uno (we can't live without cards)

Jungle Trek
 
Swimming Pool

Next morning, ooops, early morning, we got ready for a trekking session into the jungle… with our past experience with trekking, we were confident that we don't need shoes, our floaters would be enough. We started the trek by 6:30 and walked through the jungles… I was damn excited (again thought that I would encounter some wild animal within very close proximity)… and again we saw only deer… the trek was nice… Could feel the non-polluted environment in the early morning pleasantly cold time. And then, our guide asked, "madam, are you tired?? Can we go up that hill for trekking or you want us to go back through the jungle only?". How can I get tired of trekking? Pat came the reply, "no no, we can go up the hill... Is it too steep?". When he assured that it's not a steep ascend, all of us got ready to climb it. And that's where little Nikki realized that she is probably growing old at a very fast pace. After climbing non-stop for 5 minutes, Nikki has to stop to take deep breath. She was not like that till 2008 atleast, when she climbed happily on an excursion trip to Garud Machi… Throughout our trek up and down the hill, I was, though, enjoying it, but was getting worried about the deteriorating shape of my health. Anyways, somehow, we came through it and our guide told us that the total distance covered by us was 10 KMs!!!!!!!!! 10 KMs in 2.5 hours… not bad… Our legs were aching but all of us did enjoy this…

My Time Pass with Camera

And then, we attacked the breakfast and took that refreshing bath and back to the pool side… Others played cards while I played with my camera. By 11:30, it was time for us to head back to Bangalore. MC Resort gave us a souvenir at the time of checkout- a framed photograph of a deer… Nice gesture…
We halted at Mysore, where we had our lunch at the place suggested by our local Mysore Guide- Sohit/Sho/Shobhit J As I said earlier also, we were back to our home in a very good time… by 5:45 p.m. Not bad at all….
It was a refreshing break from our routines and spent nice time with each other after a very long time…
Final verdict on Bandipur:
1.   Don't go there with a hope to spot a tiger or other carnivorous animals, which depends on the LUCK….
2.   MC Resort is a nice comfortable place to stay, would give recommend it for others
3.   Enjoy elephants and bison and deer
4.   Don't miss the trekking and DO CARRY YOUR SHOES for doing it… Don't show off your heroism that you can trek without proper shoes on…
5.   Go there with your friends or big family; else you may get bored…
6.   And we had a nice time there…

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