Bandipur and Talakkad
Few years ago, on the way to Ooty, we passed through Bandipur forest (I didn't know the name at that time) in the early hours, after a long drive, from Bangalore. The route from Bangalore to Ooty made us pass through the forest across 2 states. We are not allowed honk, use camera flashes or get down the vehicle across the forest, however Karnataka part of the forest allows vehicles to stop for a bit and take pics, while in Tamil Nadu part, we can only slow down without stopping (I think taking pics is also not allowed in this part). With sleepy eyes💤, I couldn't fully appreciate the wild elephants with tusks almost touching the ground, dancing peacocks deer herds in the early rays of sun. Since then, my plans to go to Bandipur kept getting postponed. Finally, couple of weeks ago on a Friday evening, when everyone in my family desperately wanted to go on a trip but don't have more than one day to spare, we decided to go to Bandipur.
After a quick check on safari timings in the website, we started around 3 a.m with the hopes of catching 1st or 2nd safari trip. We reached little after 7 a.m. and opted for Jeep safari. Van option is cheaper, however, it don't have all window seats as mentioned in the website and Jeep safari is told to be longer duration by 30 mins. Jeep accommodates 6 people and the safari is 90 mins - previous safaris I have been to are far longer and I am slightly disappointed with this duration. At the ticket counter we asked if we can start the safari at 8:30 instead of 8 hoping we could get a quick breakfast and they mentioned the 90 min trip would be from start time. However, we are not completely convinced and went back at 8:10 and the driver informed that the trip should end sharp at 9:30 a.m 😒.
We started immediately and, in few mins, came across a small herd of wild elephants - they were so close to our vehicle, even talking in normal pitch would have annoyed them 🤫.
Soon we saw few peacocks and peahen (couldn't take a picture of them😔).
Some monkeys:
Serpent eagle:
Many reviews told that we would only spot the deer (which we already came across them on the way to breakfast) and if lucky elephants and peacocks.
Just when we thought we saw all the animals we could possibly see, our driver got a message that one of the vehicles spotted a tiger. He immediately sped to the spotting area, but the tiger was long gone. We did see a paw print though😎.
Our tour ended at 9:30 and we had a whole day ahead.
After contemplating few options🤔, we decided to visit Talakkad.
First stop is to the bank of river Kaveri - wrong place to go on a warm afternoon. The place is quite crowded and sparsely shaded. We took a short coracle ride. Scorching heat added to the sleeplessness and we were too tired to even take pictures.
Next we visiting few temples and the walk through the sand turned to be more challenging than we thought. Sneakers is not the right footwear for sand and to temples. We also had to climb down the stairs for the temples which was surprising as the most temples I visited are either at ground level or above.
The KeerthiNarayana Temple is quite a vision and quite relaxing to stop by after a tedious stroll on a sunny afternoon.
Not yet ready to call it a day, we made one last stop - Ranganathittu bird sanctuary in Srirangapatnam.
I always wanted to go there, but whenever we ventured to this place, we ended up in Brindavan gardens. Not this time, we made it to the sanctuary around 5 p.m.
My excitement was short-lived though - I couldn't spot many birds.
It was past 6 when we started back to Bangalore. Though it didn't turn out to be a great trip, I did get to tick off a couple of things in my long pending list and had a good family time.
After a quick check on safari timings in the website, we started around 3 a.m with the hopes of catching 1st or 2nd safari trip. We reached little after 7 a.m. and opted for Jeep safari. Van option is cheaper, however, it don't have all window seats as mentioned in the website and Jeep safari is told to be longer duration by 30 mins. Jeep accommodates 6 people and the safari is 90 mins - previous safaris I have been to are far longer and I am slightly disappointed with this duration. At the ticket counter we asked if we can start the safari at 8:30 instead of 8 hoping we could get a quick breakfast and they mentioned the 90 min trip would be from start time. However, we are not completely convinced and went back at 8:10 and the driver informed that the trip should end sharp at 9:30 a.m 😒.
We started immediately and, in few mins, came across a small herd of wild elephants - they were so close to our vehicle, even talking in normal pitch would have annoyed them 🤫.
Soon we saw few peacocks and peahen (couldn't take a picture of them😔).
Some monkeys:
Serpent eagle:
Many reviews told that we would only spot the deer (which we already came across them on the way to breakfast) and if lucky elephants and peacocks.
Just when we thought we saw all the animals we could possibly see, our driver got a message that one of the vehicles spotted a tiger. He immediately sped to the spotting area, but the tiger was long gone. We did see a paw print though😎.
Our tour ended at 9:30 and we had a whole day ahead.
After contemplating few options🤔, we decided to visit Talakkad.
First stop is to the bank of river Kaveri - wrong place to go on a warm afternoon. The place is quite crowded and sparsely shaded. We took a short coracle ride. Scorching heat added to the sleeplessness and we were too tired to even take pictures.
Next we visiting few temples and the walk through the sand turned to be more challenging than we thought. Sneakers is not the right footwear for sand and to temples. We also had to climb down the stairs for the temples which was surprising as the most temples I visited are either at ground level or above.
The KeerthiNarayana Temple is quite a vision and quite relaxing to stop by after a tedious stroll on a sunny afternoon.
Not yet ready to call it a day, we made one last stop - Ranganathittu bird sanctuary in Srirangapatnam.
I always wanted to go there, but whenever we ventured to this place, we ended up in Brindavan gardens. Not this time, we made it to the sanctuary around 5 p.m.
My excitement was short-lived though - I couldn't spot many birds.
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