My Trip to Bandipur National Park - July 2012

My father planned to take me to Bandhipur National Park in July. He planned in June about and booked with a travel agency in Bangalore.

Some facts on Bandipur from wikipedia

Bandipur National Park established in 1973 as a tiger reserve under Project Tiger, is a national park located in the South Indian state of Karnataka. It was once a private hunting reserve for the Maharaja of the Kingdom of  Mysore. Bandipur is known for its wildlife and has many types of biomes, but dry deciduous forest is dominant. The park spans an area of 874 sq.km protecting several species of India's endangered wildlife. It is a part of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve totalling 2,183 sq.km making it the largest protected area in southern India. Bandipur is located in Gundlupet taluk of Chamarajanagar District. It is about 80 km from the city of Mysore on the route to a major tourist destination of Ooty.


My journey to such a beautiful place starts from my grandfather’s house in Velachery on 17th July 2012.The driver came at 7:15pm and we reached the Chennai Central Railway Station around 8:35pm. The train started at 9:30pm.We travelled in Kaveri Express.

18 July 2012

I woke up at 5:45 am. We reached the Mysore railway station at 7:45 am. Our Cabs driver Mr.Nagaraju was waiting for us there.

At 8:30 am we ate in a restaurant named Kamat Madhuban.

The food was delicious.  A set of puri of three will be served. 

We reached the Bandipur Safari Lodge and get ourself refreshed.

After that we went to Masanakudi, a place in Tamil Nadu. We crossed the Mudumalai tiger reserve. On the way we viewed some spotted deers, langur(locally called as hanuman langur) and a baby elephant.

Some foreigners came to the safari lodge and we ate buffet lunch. I liked the dish made of chicken. We had a little walk around the cottage. 

Then we set out for a safari at 4:00 pm.

We were searching for tiger but we couldn’t spot it. One of the foreigners in other jeep showed us the photo of the tiger crossing across the forest road. We spotted a leopard on our way but it moved swiftly. We saw herds of spotted deer and sambar deer and a barking deer. A Brown Fish owl was spotted on a rock. It was big and had big eyes. We heard the sound of three types of deer (spotted deer, sambhar deer and barking deer). We came across the carcass of an Indian gaur which was killed by a tiger. We had a snap of a wild boar surrounded by many spotted deers. We really enjoyed the jumpy bumpy jeep ride with some drizzling.

Then we came to the cottage and watched a show on saving tigers. We had dinner and slept peacefully.

19 July 2012

On the next morning we woke up at 5:00 am and had a pleasant bath in the cold water. We started for the safari in a wild cool climate guided by Vishnu driver at around 6 .15 am. We were roaming for two hours in the jungle. We happened to see tiger’s foot prints. Further we viewed leash of deers in 5 locations. We had an enjoyful sighting of the herds of elephants near a water catchment. One of the elephant blocked the way of our jeep and gazed at us.

The driver immediately stopped the jeep and we kept pin drop silence till the elephant went to the water catchment area. The elephants were taking bath, drinking water and feeding each other. They played in the shallow waters. 

In the pond we saw a spot builder duck mother followed by many ducklings

Spotted deers , sambar deers and wild boar were on the pond drinking water. The feeling of sighting of all the above said animals in one place cannot be expressed by words.

On the return from safari we were lucky enough to spot a tiger just 15/20 metres away from our jeep near the National Highway. It was eating and nodding its head by sitting inside the bush.

Then it had a majestic walk and went to the other side of the bush. Astonished on the spotting of the national animal we forgot to click it. It was very interesting to watch langurs amd monkeys were continuously shouting and informing the arrival of tiger to the deers. We reached the cottage with immense pleasure. 

Then we took our cabs to a hill named Gopalaswamy Betta to worship Lord Krishna with his flute. The breeze was strong and the landscape was excellent.

 Evening 4 PM

By 4 pm we went for another safari into the forest and this time the jeep was driven by Mr.Prateep. I am happy to see a wild life photographer by name Mr.Adi Nagaraj in our jeep. We both became good friends and he taught me about the operation of camera and about wildlife.

We saw Serpent Eagle, Brown Fish owl, Spotted buck hare, barking deer, sambhar deer, spotted deer and green bee eater. We also saw a big lazy bison (Indian Gaur) lying on the meadow and some birds were pecking it. It was said that it is rare to see a single gaur like this. We waited for the tiger and couldn’t see it. Then we came back to the cottage and bought souvenir (mug with leopard picture, a porcupine pictured T shirt and a two in one jacket for my father).

Facts about animals given by Mr.Vishnu, the Jeep Driver for Safari

Elephant:

1.       Clean the food taken from the pond before eating because the mud and stones can damage the teeth of elephants and it would lead to death.

2.       If a mother elephant have a daughter and son, after 2 years she would send her son out of the family to avoid inbreeding.

3.       Elephant lives in a female dominated society. The grandmother leads the family.

4.       Totally 60000 elephants in Bandipur.

5.       Elephants are fond of bamboos. Unfortunately many bamboos died after flowering last year. Hence new bamboo plantation can be seen only after 5 years.

6.       They travel 1500 km/h and eat 200 kg/day with consumption of 200 litres of water/day.

7.       Baby elephant can be attacked by a tiger and therefore they move along with their mother. Elephants make sound during danger, so that elephants of other groups come and help them.

8.       The starting speed is 40 km/hr and average speed is 65 km/hr.

9.       Insects inside the elephant’s dung shall be a palatable food for mongoose.

Tiger:

1. Territory conscious and have a life span of 12 years.
2. In summer they mark their territory once in 20 days. In monsoon they mark daily. Other tigers avoid entering one’s territory.
3. The male is ferocious and the female maintains the family. The male cubs are looked after by the mother till 2 years and the female cubs for long periods.
4. Crossing of territory by tigers would lead to fight ending up to death of one of them.
5. The tiger hunts once a week and consumes 30 kg. Normally tigers hunt 50 deers/year.
6. Territorial space for male tiger is 25 sq.km and for female tiger is 12sq.km.
7. Monkeys are a mess to tigers as they raise alarm when tigers hide to hunt deer.

Deer:

1. No unity.
2. Scatter when attacked by carnivores.
3. During grazing one of the male deer will watch for predators.
4. The horns grow once a year and the withered horn is a food for porcupine. The horns are velvety and firm.
5. The blood strains would be there for long period even after the horns are withered.
6. Deers namely spotted, barking, sambhar and mouse deer are seen in Bandipur.
7. The barking deer is shy type

20 July 2012

We had our last safari trip by 6.20 am. A person who joined our vehicle from another resort yelled at the driver for being late for 3 minutes and told that “Time is money”. We saw collared dove, Malabar parakeet, spotted dove and some deers. We came back to the cottage and had bid farewell to Adi uncle who told that he would share some books of my interest. We checked out after having breakfast and collected some brochures from the office staffs about other Jungle Lodges and Resorts and started to K. Gudi and B.R. Hills. We passed through Chamrajnagar and started climbing the mountain. After crossing the forest check post the drive was so fantastic with full of green flora. We enjoyed the forest stroll very much. In K.Gudi we saw the Jungle Resort and one wild elephant.

Then we entered the BR Hills (Billigiri Ranganatha Temple Wildlife Sanctuary) and worshiphed Lord Ranganatha. 

There we had a homely lunch in a mess called Giri Darshan. The food was delicious and tasty. We purchased Pure Wild Honey. We took the other way to Mysore Via Yelandur. On the way we saw a calm stream, farms and fields of various vegetables and pulses.

 Green gram pods were beaten by small stick on the road to separate the gram.

We reached Mysore by 4 Pm. Then we went to Samundeswari hill and worshipped the Universal Mother Goddess. It was one of the eight sacred hills in South India.

We bought laddu as Prasad and safely carried out of the temple from naughty monkeys. We went to see the huge Nandi Statue 

on the other side of the hill and happened to see another route to Ooty via Nanjangad. We had our tiffin in Hotel Santhosh and special malligai idly was served. Finally we reached the Railway station at 6.10 pm and passed the time in the waiting hall writing the final part of my diary on the above visit.

I happily shared the memories with two senior engineers who were in the same compartment.