Wow! what a great trip. I haven't slept properly from the past three days and yet i feel so fresh and rejuvenated.
Having done packing till late night on friday, we got up early on saturday morning and headed towards gautham's home from where we (myself, girish, gautham, karthik, kartheesan , bhavesh, anand, ashalata & bharthi) had planned our trip to Nagarhole.We had planned to cover a few more places as well.
Around 6 am we started from gautham's home in basveshwar nagar, towards mysore.On the way we stopped near Dr.Ambedkar Engg College for all the guys wanted to remember the good old days they had together there.Then we headed straight towards nagarhole.
As we reached the gate of the Rajiv Gandhi National Park, the guard asked for his chai-paani and we payed him 20 bucks and moved on hoping we could see some animals.It was 20km drive from there to our resort called machaan. For quite sometime we could not see any animals on the road but we were so excited that we kept out hopes high.We could see some deers,peacocks, kingfisher,elephants and more deers.By the time we reached the end of the park we were literally ignoring the deers,there were so many of them !
We reached the resort and had our lunch and we started towards irpu falls which was located a few kms from there.There was a temple near the falls but by the time we reached there i.e around 5 pm, the temple was closed.We had to take the steps to reach the top to get to the falls.The steps were quite huge and but our excitement kept us driving.Finally we reached the top and what a beautiful sight it was.It was not a huge falls but yet there was something very attractive about it.What made it more nicer was the weather at that time.It was about to drizzle.By the time we walked down, it had started drizzling and we headed back to our resort.The roads were quite good making our drive back also equally memorable.
At night we had great time, karthik started telling about their college life and how they had lots of fun then.We had a great time and we planned that we will get up early the next day and go for the safari.
As planned we started for the safari and reached there around 7:30 am the next safari was supposed to be at 8:15 am, we had to wait for sometime there, so we just took a walk around and got to see some more deers and monkeys.
The van had arrived and resort guy gautham had taken the tickets and we sat inside.Gautham was from ooty and had joined the resort about 6 months back. He new the area well and more over his knowledge about wildlife was amazing.He spoke fluent english, tamil and kannada. So it was easy to communicate with him.As the safari started we were expecting to see some wild animals atleast.We were told that there were 72 tigers in that area apart from bisons, leapords, snakes and other wild animals.
As the safari continued we were able to spot the serpent eagle, drongo which was a bird with a long tail, spotted dove, wild peahens, mongoose, elephants, wild squirrels with brownish bushy tail and many other colorful birds.We were able to see the footprints of leopards as well as it had rained the previous night and the ground was still wet.But we could not spot any of them.
We were happy that we got to see so many birds but were a little disappointed as we could not see the leopards or the tigers.We got into our cars and headed back towards our resort. On the way we could spot the wild pigs and forest dogs.
We had breakfast and decided to visit a vishnu temple in Thepanalli in kerala which was 40 min drive from the resort.The resort guy gautham told us he could take us there.We thought it was a good idea to take him as he knew the route well and we didnt have much time as we had to leave to bangalore soon after we had lunch by 3.
So we got ready to visit the temple.We started by 12 am and reached the temple around 1pm.The roads even though they were narrow, were very good.It might well have been recently tarred.
The backdrop of the temple was another amazing sight.It was a huge mountain which looked like as if it was painted in green.we walked up the steps as there was a stream flowing there.we got to spend some time there.We got see some beautiful blue colored butterflies which were supposed to be found only in that area.As we walked down the resort guy asked to check for leeches on our foot. Karthik and anand had to pluck out 3 to 4 of them which were feasting on there blood.It was quite a sight for me as i had not seen any leeches so small in my whole life till then.We could not go inside the temple as it was already closed so we headed back to our resort
As planned we left for bangalore around 5pm.We had to come through Nagarhole once again,We were excited as usual to spot more animals this time as well.But since it was becoming dark we could hardly see any animals except for the usual deers.Suddenly a van passed us the signaled us to look for something ahead.This was sufficient to boost up our energy levels and we eagerly waited to reach something exciting.A couple of yards futher we spotted 3 wild elephants one of which was a baby.We stopped our car some distance back and we started taking pictures.Suddenly a car passed us and it moved closer to the elephants.I think they wanted a closer view of the elephants.As the car reached them, the mother made a huge noise and lifted her trunk to hit the car.The car made a narrow escape as he drove past quickly.We were far behind and watched all this.Now we were in a fix whether to move or not.More cars started to pile up behind us and we informed them that the elephants can be violent.As we waited for the elephants to move away, more elephants joined them.
we patiently waited for them to cross the road, then about 15-20 min later the coast got cleared and we could move from there.
Then we headed straight to Bangalore.what an adventurous weekend we had! It was amazing.I guess we were at the right time at the right place with right people.
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