Bandipur

Bandipur can be visited from Bangalore on a day trip. Still, we wanted to experience it by staying in the jungle. We went in mid-March for the weekend. From word of mouth and different reviews, we had limited expectations from the trip, but it came out to be great.

Route

Bangalore -> Mysore -> Gundlupete -> Bandipur

The road condition is good throughout. Better to start early to avoid the heavy traffic on Bangalore – Mysore part. There are ample food options and petrol pumps. Please note that the gate to enter Bandipur gets closed during the night.

Stay

We stayed at Bandipur Tiger Reserve of Karnataka Govt. Other than this one, all the other resorts are outside the jungle. This one is inside the jungle, with no fence between you and the wild.

The struggle in booking the same took me days to finalize it. First of all, you can hardly get a picture of the room(s) while booking. Secondly, no details are available about the room other than some names. To get any info, you might get redirected from one number to another 4-5 times before reaching the actual number where you can get some information. And the most tricky one is that you have to select the cottage at the time of booking by choosing the name you have no clue about. Leaving it entirely up to the probability, we booked the ‘Kokila 1’ cottage.

The rules are strict there about keeping the tourists safe. The car had to be kept at the parking and not near your cottage to avoid getting it damaged by elephants. Though the fresh elephant dung in the parking didn’t give me much guarantee about that. You should not get out of the cottage after 9pm. And, you can’t walk around in the compound after dark. There was an electric buggy that took us for dinner even though it was not more than 100 meters away from our cottage.

I was taking the rules just as a standard practice by authority and didn’t estimate the actual threat behind violating those until we saw a leopard on the tree on the opposite side of the road from the parking. I was parking the car, and a guard indicated to us that. For a moment, I was unsure whether sitting inside the car would be a better judgment. While we and others gathered to observe the leopard, we realized some wild boars were roaming in the parking itself. While coming to our cottage, an wild boar decided to welcome us by standing at the cottage entrance. While we went there to feel the wild, this proximity was not something we expected.

The stay became even more interesting after dark when we heard the leopard roaring not far from the cottage. Though, was not fortunate enough to see that closely. This was the first time I had heard such a thing, and for the first time, see a herd of deer standing like statues by hearing the same. We saw hundreds of deer on the trip, mainly in the resort area. The open area of the resort is excellent for having a good time.

The amenities were basic there, if not close to none. Still, we enjoyed the stay due to its closeness to nature. They are very sincere about safety, and the buggy guy was helpful and available for to and fro trips any time.

Safari

We booked the safari online. It is suggested to take the first slot in the early morning or the last one in the evening. We took the first one on the bus as the other preferred vehicle were all booked for the day. Independent of what time slot or vehicle type, seeing something on safari is solely on luck, and we were not that lucky. We have seen a big group of buffalo-type creatures called Gaur, claimed by the guide as the most giant buffalo species in India. We have also seen a mother and child elephant trying to hide behind the bushes. It was told to be risky to stop the bus as the mother elephant might take it as a danger to the child and attack. Other than these, the safari was mostly dry.

Other than the safari, we drove until the end of the forest on the Tamilnadu side and saw multiple dears on that route.

Food

The food options were limited at the resort, but that was the only option for dinner. For breakfast and lunch, we came out of the jungle and had it at one of the resorts outside.