Beginner’s Luck at Bandipur

Bandipur, Travel, Wildlife - 3 Comments » - Posted on August, 19 at 2:58 am

And it was all beginner’s luck! It has been more than 8 years Sumana and I are visiting forests, but luck never shined on us of a cat sighting. And this little kid, on his first visit to Bandipur, happens to see a pair of leopards! Call it unfair, but this time we rode Iravan’s luck to get our prayers answered. So we were heading Gopalaswamy Betta on a lazy morning, and after the forest checkpost, there was not a soul around in the entire drive. Around 2 kms before we reached the peak, he crossed the road, say 100 meters ahead. I immediately stopped, backed off a little, turned off the engine; and all 3 of us were holding our breath to get another glimpse of the beauty. After some time, sure enough, he came back to a roadside bush, and kept an eye on us. There was no clear view, but we were excited enough to forget all our cameras in back seat. The stillness was broken by a speeding Sumo which overtook us with blasting horns, and then we saw the fiancee of the guy who was hiding on the opposite side of the road. They jumped into the shrubs of downhill slope and disappeared. Further wait wasn’t productive anymore, though it took us hours to get our normalcy restored. I generally avoid entering temples, but this time I didn’t mind offering fifty bucks to Gopala when we reached the top.

Ok so rest of the story is kinda mudane, but nevertheless the whole trip was very interesting. It was the 3rd occasion we have booked 2 nights in JLR Bandipur, though we couldn’t make it once before. The booking drill is very simple, call to check for availability, make a tentative booking and next saturday make the advance payment. As per service and food goes, they are getting better every time I checked, and if you happen to have a kid for company like we did, they extend all possible care for your comfort. We always had special food made for Iravan, exactly as instructed, right on time, at no extra cost. So this time also we occupied the `Tiger’ room (each room has a theme, like fabric of the curtains, bed-spread look like tiger skin; the floor carpet has pugmarks and one wall is painted with a brilliant picture of a tiger).

Iravan wasn’t at his best, had temperature higher than normal and felt sick halfway. We thought of returning back from Maddur but later decided to take a chance if he responds to the medicines. We decided to let him sleep in the morning as long as he wanted, so didn’t opt for any of the morning safaries. But the afternoon safaries were eventful enough.

We started a few minutes after 4:00, and our destination was Moyar gorge via Moolapura kere. Elephants, deers and gaurs were highlights of the onward journey (and we rescued a drunk forest worker too). The gorge is all green now, and it was a great sight to see the mighty moyer river gushing several hundred feet below. We started our return just before dark, when it happened. Our vehicle got stuck in mud. It wasn’t a 4×4, so we hopelessly watched every attempt to move the RTV resulting in wheelspinning and sinking further down in slush. Everyone got down, ladies and children were asked to climb a rock nearby (the gaur herd was not even half km away from us), and we men tried pushing the van which now wouldn’t budge a single inch. And then came the next discovery, our radio wouldn’t work. After 10 minutes of vigourous labour pushing, we gave up. And then a jeep came. We learned the jeep wasn’t destined this way, but a fine lady insisted she wants to visit Moyar gorge in spite of it was dark already. We all agreed it was godsent, but if I go by MWI of quantum mechanics, we were stuck in deep dark woods in some parallel universe. The jeep ferried all of us to an antipoaching camp (just a shelter) in two trips, before trying to tow the van using a nylon rope which snapped on every attempt. Even the jeep’s radio couldn’t send SOS to JLR camp. Finally the jeep picked up ladies and children to drop them in the resort and seek assistance. By the time the resort folks sensed something went wrong and sent 2 more jeeps to search for us (thankfully they knew both the vehicles went towards Moyar gorge). We all were together again for dinner!

We didn’t go for morning safari as Iravan’s temperature was higher, but post breakfast he was happy and running so we decided to make a visit to Gopalaswamy betta, the story we started with. After lunch, we had a slow drive to Thepkadu which produced some good elephant sightings on the main road itself. The second safari produced some good bird sightings, including crested serpent eagle and brown fish owl. I got some nice Sambar pics too. On our way back, when it was almost dark, we bumped into a pack of wild dogs. They made a kill the previous day, and was finishing off the leftovers. They were in extremely good mood, but unfortunately the light was too low to shoot. But our prayers were answered, and that’s the best way a safari could end.

Fast forward three months:

We went back there. Yes, again. Iravan was better this time, to allow us to take all the trips, but the weather wasn’t. It started raining heavily the first morning onwards, and there was very little opportunity to take the camera out. But as we always maintain, the forest itself looks so different in different times, that we come back to see the same places over and over. And really it looks so different in rains. And it is a rare incident that it’d be raining incessantly and you’re deep inside forest.

Though we visited Gopalaswamy Betta again, this time with no exciting sighting. Rather the best sighting came in the highway, we could be very close to a crested hawk eagle for quite some time. He posed for a while; and we could get our best shots of the species.

“Kousik & Sumana’s Travel Ventures”

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Beginner’s Luck at Bandipur