Mudhumalai - Nagarahole - Tholpetty

We had planned for this for about a month. There were a few things which i had in mind.
i wanted to go for a night safari and also wanted to trek in the jungle.
Google helped me find out that there are night safari's in Mudhumalai.
So our first destination was decided. we found out about all the resorts for accommodation, called them and read all the reviews. Finally we selected Bear Mountain Jungle Resort and trust me this has to be the best resort there.
Next, we knew a guy in Nagarahole and he told he'll book a home-stay for us near tholpetty.
as we were covering more than one place we decided to take friday off and leave on Thursday night.


As usual, i finished office,came home,packed my bags and went to ganesh's place by 9 PM.
Raj joined us half hour later. we knew it would be around 10 30 PM for munna to come, so we went to shop for some booze and other items.

Munna arrived from office, and off we were on our legendary trip.
Mudhumalai is around 30-40 kms from Bandipur (230 Kms from Bangalore).
The reason we leave so late in the night is to reach the sanctuary early in the morning so that there are more chances to sight wildlife.

We finished some 13 cans of beer and stopped at coffee day for dinner and coffee.
Spent some nice amount of time there. we then stopped again at a dhaba further for some more beer.
we were at bandipur by 6 15 AM and decided to go to the Safari.
I must agree that the only low point of our trip was this safari (95/- per head).
we saw nothing and we all were dozing off.
I feel Bandipur is one of the worst maintained Sanctuaries in south India. It is fully commercialized and the vegetation is pathetic (almost looks like a desert).
we finished the safari and took off to mudhumalai.
There is a check post which you have to cross (Tamilnadu) and as soon as you cross you can notice the change in vegetation. its lush green on this side of the sanctuary.
The weather was just great. very pleasant. it was cloudy but was not raining.
The drive through the mudhumalai sanctuary was awesome. saw one or two elephants here.
We then stopped at masinagudi for breakfast. at the same time we were enquiring about the night safari and the morning trek. The safari the resort offers is 1000 bucks for a jeep and outside it comes up to 600 bucks. so the choice was clear. we took his number, got the directions to the resort and left.

When we reached Bear Mountain Resort we were speechless.
Its the closest resort to the foothills of nilgiri's and the view blows your mind off.
we got the cottage (C6) with the best view. They have hammocks all over the place and you can sleep on them and watch the cloud pass by the nilgiri mountains the whole day.

we then freshened up and started playing cricket. it was amazing.
we tired ourselves, then went and relaxed on the hammock.

after sometime we played some volleyball and went to have lunch.
food was amazing. raj finished around 5 chickens and munna had some 3 kgs of rice (no wonder Americans are complaining about our rice intake).
With our stomach's full, we finally hit the bed. we slept till around 6 30 PM.
we then got up and started our drinking session. The resort has a lot of sit-out places for this.
we sat down and started with our Chivas Regal (Thanks to Ganesh). i had got playing cards.
so the whiskey, the dim light, the pleasant weather, and a game of rummy blended well together.
we had dinner at around 10 PM and set out for our night safari. The experience was great. this was something i wanted to do for a long time.
we spotted plenty of Indian Gaurs (Bison), one Elephant, and spotted deer. The safari was for around 2 hours.
we came back and crashed to bed.

Next morning, we got up late and got ready slowly, had breakfast and left the resort by 12 noon.
Nagarahole is around 120 kms from mudhumalai and it took us some time to reach there. we took a couple of breaks.
it rained on our way to nagarahole and it was awesome.
we were there by around 5 PM. i must say that nagarahole is one of my favorite places in karnataka.
its maintained really well and the forest is really dense.
anyways we spend sometime there (and decided the next time we go there, we will stay at kalhalla range guest house) and moved on
to tholpetty (Kerala, part of wayanad wildlife sanctuary).
we checked in our rooms (there were pretty good) and went to the forest officer to book for our trek for the next day.
we came back and sat for a booze session, had lunch and set out for a night safari.
here, he took us in our own car. again, the safari was simply awesome.


Next morning, we got up, bought some food and water for the trek, went to the forest officers office at 8 AM, signed a few documents and set out for the safari with an armed officer and a tribal chap.
i seriously have no words to explain this experience.
it cost us some 850 bucks for 4 people and was totally worth it.
we trekked for atleast 15 kms in the forest as we came back at 3 PM.
its one thing to pass by wildlife in a car.
but, its a completely different thing to walk by them in their territory.
we saw pugmarks,a tiger chasing a deer,sloth bear, barking deer and spotted deer and indian gaurs (bisons).
this was easily the best part of our trip.
we then came back to the room, had lunch and started our drive back home. i don't know where i felt more like home anymore.but still, we had to go back.we left at the perfect time with minimum traffic through the sanctuary and maximum possibility of wildlife sighting.
we saw elephants and at the end, we saw a couple of wild dogs(dhole). this was the first time i ever saw a wild dog. it was amazing.
we finally came back to bangalore at around 10 30 PM.

Like all of our trips, this was also planned very well and we did a total of 670 Kms in 3 days.
and like always, we had maximum fun.

we were not all that sad when we came back.
cuz we know where we are going next. so we are all happy. :)
parambikulam wildlife sanctuary.. here we come...

leave a comment if you need more details.