Originally posted here on January 10th, 2007
Its 8 in the evening on Friday night. I’m in Agara at Rakesh’s place, the next day we are supposed to start at 5:00 in the morning for our trip, but we are still googling for a destination. We finally settle for Gopalswamibetta and Bandipur, though Amaresh is still rooting for Bhimeshwari( no matter he can hardly remember or pronounce the name).
5:30 on Saturday morning, we get started for Gopalswamibetta. I make myself comfortable in the backseat. Its kind of dark outside and all of us half asleep. In half an hour we are outside Bangalore and speeding towards Mysore. I’m still not fully awake when suddenly a large thud tells me we’ve had an accident. The driver hits the brakes, the car screeches to a halt, and I try to see what or who is it that we have hit, but I see nothing. I’m afraid it’s a pedestrian and am fearing the worst when someone says we’ve hit a pig. With all due apologies to the pig, its comforting to know we’ve not hit a human. Jha says the pig got entangled in a tire and that its left a blood trail. It sounds horrific and dreading the scene Chaubesh, Bihari and myself stay put in the car. Meanwhile a crowd has gathered around the car and Watson, Jha and Rakesh have got out to assess the situation. Me and Chaubesh look back and see a pig walking down the road. Chaubesh jokes it might be the pig that we hit when to our amazement we are told that is indeed the case. The car is badly damaged and can’t continue.
After waiting for around 3 hours, we get the new car and continue on our trip.
Gopalswamibetta is a famous for its temple and the fog on the hills surrounding it. The temple is not very big and dedicated to Lord Krishna. After having a cursory look at the temple, we decide to go further among the hills. The sight is beautiful and alluring, small green hills all around. Initially, its fun ascending and descending the hills through lush green grass. At places, there is no clearly visible track and we have to wade through grass reaching our waists. But after half an hour of walking under the sun and seeing the same sight all around, we decide to return. By the time we trace our steps back to our vehicle, I’m thankful that the original trekking plan got cancelled. I’m not really made for this kind of stuff.
We now head towards Bandipur. The safari is only between 4 and 6 pm in the evening and we are right in time for it. There’s a board in the sanctuary office and it has the census figures for the sanctuary. There’s a whole list of animals on it and I’m terribly excited about seeing all of them.
In the bus, I take my seat next to the window and looking forward to tigers and cheetahs. For the first 5 mins we don’t see anything but that might be because we are not yet deep inside the woods, I think. After some time we see a herd of deer and the bus halts. People get excited and start shouting. The driver gets angry and reprimands them. Meanwhile, I click some pics. The bus starts moving and after some time we come across another herd of deer. I click some more pics. We move again and come across some more deer. But by now no one is interested in deer. We came for tigers and cheetahs, not to click a hundred pics of deer from 50 mts away. We saw deer more closely on the way to Tirupati and even fed them. After that, this is not really exciting. Even my college had deer, so this is not fun any more. In fact it is so boring that the lady behind me has fallen asleep. Next, we see a bunch of monkeys. God, this is getting worse. There were lots of them near my dept and they were considered a nasty nuisance. I’ve had monkeys tear my trousers packet, take my ice cream, snatch my glass of juice. And now I’m taking a paid tour to watch them and click pics. So what’s next? A herd of buffaloes? Actually no. What we see next is a couple of peahens. Yes, peahens and not peacocks. And the driver actually reverses the vehicle so that we can have a second look. By now everyone has lost any hope of seeing anything close to a fierce, wild animal. We reach the point from where we started and trudge back to our Sumo.
Gopalswamibetta was not a big success but if anything can be called an utter flop, this is it. While passing by the sanctuary office I remember a board which said that animal sighting depended on luck. How true!!!
The Sumo starts and just when its turning towards Mysore, someone says we should go to Ooty. Ooty? Yes, we have been kidding about going to Ooty since morning but no one was really serious. But after two not so exciting experiences, it is decided to go to Ooty and make this trip a success. So the vehicle takes a u-turn and zipsalong towards Ooty, though Amaresh and Bihari are not sure we’ll be able to get accommodation. Even I’m a little skeptical but if the majority wants to go, I’m not the one to play spoilsport. Moreover, I’ve never been to Ooty before.
To be continued......
Its 8 in the evening on Friday night. I’m in Agara at Rakesh’s place, the next day we are supposed to start at 5:00 in the morning for our trip, but we are still googling for a destination. We finally settle for Gopalswamibetta and Bandipur, though Amaresh is still rooting for Bhimeshwari( no matter he can hardly remember or pronounce the name).
5:30 on Saturday morning, we get started for Gopalswamibetta. I make myself comfortable in the backseat. Its kind of dark outside and all of us half asleep. In half an hour we are outside Bangalore and speeding towards Mysore. I’m still not fully awake when suddenly a large thud tells me we’ve had an accident. The driver hits the brakes, the car screeches to a halt, and I try to see what or who is it that we have hit, but I see nothing. I’m afraid it’s a pedestrian and am fearing the worst when someone says we’ve hit a pig. With all due apologies to the pig, its comforting to know we’ve not hit a human. Jha says the pig got entangled in a tire and that its left a blood trail. It sounds horrific and dreading the scene Chaubesh, Bihari and myself stay put in the car. Meanwhile a crowd has gathered around the car and Watson, Jha and Rakesh have got out to assess the situation. Me and Chaubesh look back and see a pig walking down the road. Chaubesh jokes it might be the pig that we hit when to our amazement we are told that is indeed the case. The car is badly damaged and can’t continue.
After waiting for around 3 hours, we get the new car and continue on our trip.
Gopalswamibetta is a famous for its temple and the fog on the hills surrounding it. The temple is not very big and dedicated to Lord Krishna. After having a cursory look at the temple, we decide to go further among the hills. The sight is beautiful and alluring, small green hills all around. Initially, its fun ascending and descending the hills through lush green grass. At places, there is no clearly visible track and we have to wade through grass reaching our waists. But after half an hour of walking under the sun and seeing the same sight all around, we decide to return. By the time we trace our steps back to our vehicle, I’m thankful that the original trekking plan got cancelled. I’m not really made for this kind of stuff.
We now head towards Bandipur. The safari is only between 4 and 6 pm in the evening and we are right in time for it. There’s a board in the sanctuary office and it has the census figures for the sanctuary. There’s a whole list of animals on it and I’m terribly excited about seeing all of them.
In the bus, I take my seat next to the window and looking forward to tigers and cheetahs. For the first 5 mins we don’t see anything but that might be because we are not yet deep inside the woods, I think. After some time we see a herd of deer and the bus halts. People get excited and start shouting. The driver gets angry and reprimands them. Meanwhile, I click some pics. The bus starts moving and after some time we come across another herd of deer. I click some more pics. We move again and come across some more deer. But by now no one is interested in deer. We came for tigers and cheetahs, not to click a hundred pics of deer from 50 mts away. We saw deer more closely on the way to Tirupati and even fed them. After that, this is not really exciting. Even my college had deer, so this is not fun any more. In fact it is so boring that the lady behind me has fallen asleep. Next, we see a bunch of monkeys. God, this is getting worse. There were lots of them near my dept and they were considered a nasty nuisance. I’ve had monkeys tear my trousers packet, take my ice cream, snatch my glass of juice. And now I’m taking a paid tour to watch them and click pics. So what’s next? A herd of buffaloes? Actually no. What we see next is a couple of peahens. Yes, peahens and not peacocks. And the driver actually reverses the vehicle so that we can have a second look. By now everyone has lost any hope of seeing anything close to a fierce, wild animal. We reach the point from where we started and trudge back to our Sumo.
Gopalswamibetta was not a big success but if anything can be called an utter flop, this is it. While passing by the sanctuary office I remember a board which said that animal sighting depended on luck. How true!!!
The Sumo starts and just when its turning towards Mysore, someone says we should go to Ooty. Ooty? Yes, we have been kidding about going to Ooty since morning but no one was really serious. But after two not so exciting experiences, it is decided to go to Ooty and make this trip a success. So the vehicle takes a u-turn and zipsalong towards Ooty, though Amaresh and Bihari are not sure we’ll be able to get accommodation. Even I’m a little skeptical but if the majority wants to go, I’m not the one to play spoilsport. Moreover, I’ve never been to Ooty before.
To be continued......
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