Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Gopalswamy hill and Bandipura Trip

To end year with a great trip, we all head towards Mysore on 30th Dec. After a lot of confusion regarding where to go, we ended in this direction. This trip required early start from us, since most of us stay in all corners of Bangalore. Cab started from Yelahanka and reached Suresh's place by 6.20 AM by picking all of us. After the pooja, we headed towards mysore with an intention to cover Ranganathittu, Himavadgiri Gopalswamy hill and Bandipura safari.

Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary: After a heavy breakfast on BM Highway, we reached Ranganathittu around 9.15AM. We had two special guests in the form of Shika(Sushil's daughter) and Yash(Poornima's son). Its a Bird sanctuary famous for wide range of Birds which come here in huge number during the month of september and october. Speciality with Ranganathittu is the boat trip which even though last for few minutes, will definitely leave a great impression. We had a nice guide cum boat rider, who said birds are mostly from India, even though claims are many birds belong to outer countries visit here. There were many birds even though we were almost one and half month late to the prime season. Many birds including Spoonbill, Cranes, Wide range of Stroks, Kingfisher, herons were there. Our boat went near a Crocodile, which was taking rest caring for nobody who visits the place. Few close snaps of birds were taken. Monkeys disturbed the sleepy huge numbered Bats, they started flying, whose number increased every second. They were so much in number it attracted every bodies attention. Few of the snaps which we took:

Gopalswamy betta/hill: Next our journey was towards to Gopalswamy hill, which is around 70km from Mysore. By the time we reached the base of the hill where the board reads hill is at 10Kms, we could feel drop in the temperature drastically. As our tempo traveller reached more height, we could feel cold even at noon on a bright sunny day. This place looks great with rich green grass, also famous for Elephants in a huge herd. In my previous trip to this place, there were tiger marks. This temple belongs to 14th century. It belongs to Bandipura reserve forest, there are as many as 76 lakes in around this place. At any time of the year, this place will be covered by mist hence the name "Himavad" giri. If you reach this place early morning you can witness ocean of clouds, which may also have very low visibility for the ride.
Windows of the world:

Bandipura National Forest: Its a reserve forest for Tiger(Project Tiger was initiliazed in 1973). Its hardly 40 mins journey from Gopalswamy hill. We wanted to go for a Safari, which starts early in morning as well as in the late afternoon. After collecting the tickets for the Safari, we waited a while for our Safari vehicle. Meanwhile, we also witnesses bundle of problems by monkeys in that area. One of them took a fresh Mountain dew drink from a car, opened it and started to drink along with running away from others to avoid any share. Mountain dew's one liner - "Darr ke aage jeeth hai", had no impact on it, since it was already dare enough to get into any cars and open up bags. Since our safari was bit late, we thought of having some snacks, they started coming close to us. One of them with a nice hair-style, had some problem with Sushil, it even hit him and gave some weired looks. Before getting into the bus, we saw lots of Macak(Monkey), Spotted deer and trained elephants. We got in bus expecting to see lots of wild animals. But the Safari was bit disappointing, since we could only see some Peacocks, Langurs, Few deers and some colorful birds. We had to satisfy ourself by looking at boards of Tigers and other creatures. But if they were in such a huge number that anybody could have seen them, then there would have not been events like "Project Tiger" or ads on TV. I think this is may be the time for us get serious about conserving their habitat to make Safari's great for the forthing coming generation.

With a happy mood we ended our journey, returned back to Bangalore to Celebrate new year with a new josh. Trip was amazing for many things like, kids had great time watchig birds and crocodile. Also yash was busy all the day taking snaps at all different angle possible.

Our Team:

From left: Impha, Sharayu, Poornima, Yash, Suresh, Ajit, Bhaskar, Shika, Anand, Sushil, me and Nandu

Super Man(junath)

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