Bandipur... Perfect weekend plan

Far from world of technology...

Yeah !!! It is a weekend in real meaning.

Bandipur is around 240 KM from Bangalore. It is one of the premier Tiger Reserves in the country along with the adjoining Nagarhole national park. It was once a private hunting reserve for the Maharajah of the Kingdom of Mysore but has now been upgraded to Bandipur Tiger Reserve.

We have visited in month of March by thinking that we might see the tiger in search for water near by area.

Best thing :

- No network apart from BSNL, only you and your friends having some valuable, enjoyable time

- At evening time you see deer and elephant ,lots of monkey and junglee pigs/suvar near to your resort.

- Early morning safari is mind blowing very peaceful experience. Bird giggling will bring you in all another worlds,

  unfortunately due to last week fire in forest we did not see any tiger we saw peacock and eagle and few other birds.

Day - 1:

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From Bangalore we left for Bandipur in morning 6:30 am on Saturday morning in a self-driving car.

we had one of the most memorable breakfast at "Kamat Lokaruchi" on our way.

we reached Bandipur around 1pm.

We had booked the Government guest house, which is the only available choice for visitors for stay.

After checking in to our stay for the weekend, we headed for lunch. As expected there was only one place for breakfast/lunch/dinner where food was just for survival except the "French Frice". To our surprise, among all below average dishes(burnt "Manchurian Dry", half fried "Fried Rice" etc…) these little sticks of heavenly taste gave us a  luxurious dining experience. And of course it was part of all our meals which followed.

After lunch we took some rest. Just lying on the bed, without electricity(for some time) we all shared our travelling experiences of different parts of India, at what age we visited those places, with whom (family/friends/school trip) all the funny & memorable events of those trips.  We were very much excited & ready to explore all those places which we haven't after that short tour of almost entire India. I really hadn't had that kind of conversation with anyone in a long time. Mostly occupied in office work, house duties, smart phone, laptop.

We also spend some time playing card before we went out to take the campus tour. The government guest houses(cottages) are spread in a very big area without any surrounding walls. Visiting each independent house will take at least an hour but it is worthy. We roamed till it was almost dark & we lost the sight of beautiful elephants, deer & scary monkeys which we observed for a very long time as they were very close to the campus. Of course we clicked some pictures (of ourselves & others specially when they didn't know).

After the sunset on Day-1 we went for dinner. Yes we had that BLA, BLA, BLA…. & "French Fries". After dinner we took a walk in the campus. There were few electricity poles with old age street lights at some places along the path way, good enough to take a walk & to know how to reach where you came from(your cottage). We had a booking for 6 person to which unluckily we were allotted 2 different cottages (4 + 2 person) which were far from each other. And more interestingly the one for 2 person occupancy was at the edge of the campus and in the night time it is very common that you walk out of your cottage & you find wild animal right in front of you. Since one person missed out our trip we were only 5 & decided to spend the night together as beds were very big & combining 4 of them easily accommodated 5 people. However we needed to bring blankets from the other cottage so two of us decided to go there & bring pillows and blankets. Since street lights were not enough to reach the other cottage we used mobile phone torch & started walking. As we were closing to our destination on a side of the path way we heard sound of tree leaves. It was dark so we raised our torch little higher to see who is there and to our surprise + little scary + excitement we saw many bright shiny dots like very small light bulbs. In the very next moment we realized that a pack of deer was resting under a tree there some of them having their dinner(leaves) less than 10 meters from us. OMG I had never seen something like that before. In our excitement & fear we quickly marched towards our cottage. As we had to go further in dark from there our heart beats were getting faster. We quickly reached the cottage grabbed whatever we can a blanket & 2 pillows probably, locked the door & this time without raising the torch anywhere in the dark we walked as quickly as we can & reached our main cottage. Whoooh…. however scary, it was a thrilling experience. We got to know from a care taker just after that in the night wild pigs will be roaming  in the campus & it is not allowed for anybody to stay outside of the cottage after 10pm. It was fun telling about this experience to others(who stayed at main cottage after dinner) & to listen to their comments on it of course. We played card for some time along with all these chit chat & finally got a peaceful sleep.

2nd day :

We had booked the Safari for 6:30 t0 7:30am slot among the 3 available morning slots. We reached at the starting point at 6:15 and took the ticket (a hand written chit) from the booking office as we had registered online earlier. We were waiting for ore gypsy (Yes, old green gypsy mostly seen in old bollywood movies as police vehicle). We were watching gypsies coming with passengers by completing the safari & also loading the passengers and going for the safari. After waiting for about q5 minutes there came our driver with a gypsy & we took seats quickly eagerly waiting to catch some big animal either elephant or jackpot (a tiger). It was sunny morning already and ther it begun the most interesting part of our trip. We were hunting with our eyes for big animals. Almost 10 - 15 minutes passed, only things we could see so far were some birds. And those were the only things we could see during the safari. We did not see any tiger of elephant  but it was happy experience to roam deeper into the jungle.

Back from safari around 7:40,we got freshen up and went for breakfast. No, come on French Fries are not served in the breakfast. So only idly & wada. After this we packed up the things and checked out from the guest house taking all amazing & exiting memories of the time well spent. We left Bandipur around 10:30 am.

Our plan was to utilize the 5 hours' time we had before we reach Bangalore in the night and return the car(Yes we took a self-driving one, remember?). We decided to visit Mysore palace as it would be quick and few of us had already visited earlier. I was more exited for my lunch at "Mylari Dosa" a small place very famous for authentic masala dosa. Dosa with pure white coconut chutney & a big piece of butter on it. I just cannot describe the taste in words. I would say the No.1 thing to do in Mysore is to visit this little place then go anywhere else.

After having our lunch here we headed to Bangalore.....

Even though it might not sound that fun or thrill, believe me it was a very unique & calming experience much needed time to time in modern days where people are always busy in laptop/smart phone/office work/future planning etc. Here you won't have cell network (except BSNL). So whatever you do will either be with your friends/family or you will enjoy your personal time in the lap of mother nature.

In short, this was one of the most satisfying weekend I spent probably since my childhood.

See you again !!!