Bandipur National Park Experience: Calm and cool; a destination where one can be nearest to nature and wild life, relax and rejuvinate for the rigors of day to day life. Best part was we had two cells, Airtel and Vodafone; both were not working beacuse of very bleak / no network.
Food, sight-seeing and shopping: Spread was not great at Country Club buffet foodcourt where we stayed but was very tasty and fresh. Jungle safari in early morning in forest deptt jeep was the highlight of our trip; we could site tiger setting to prowl upon herd of deer grazing innocently; could see two mongoose making a fight over a kill; vulture waiting on a tree branch for its turn to do the scavanger's job and lot many other animals. For a change, nothing to shop there; perhaps ideal place for husbands and worst place for wives!!
Activities & things to do: Trekking, forest safaries, indoor games at resort, photography / videography, reading a book for which you never found time during your busy schedules.
Travel tips, How to reach, travel warnings etc: From Mumbai, we reached Banglore by morning flight where we had vehicle arranged for Bandipur. Route is Banglore / Mysore (130 kms) / Bandipur (80kms) - Takes around 5 hours including two halts of 15 to 20 mins each. Road condition upto Mysore is very good (four lanning); further it is double lane road. Better reach Bandipur well before sunset; you loose connectivity after you cross Mysore and there are hardly any population on road. If interested in Forest safaris, please go prepared with cloths as close to colors of nature as possible (brown / light green / mild yellow) and necessarily avoid Red / black. Remember to switch off flash mode of your camera before you set in forest and start shooting; animals get scared and spotting them becomes difficult. Maintain as much silence as possible and just relish NATURE.
