Coorg and Nagarhole

This was a 2-day trip back in March, just before holi. Though it was not the perfect time to visit Coorg, we decided that we’ll go for it and keep the bigger trips for later. I always wanted to go stay in a national park and Nagarhole national park was convenient to be included in this trip as it is around 90-100 kms from Coorg. We reached Coorg a little too early, around 4 in the morning, and took a home stay for a few hours before we could start roaming around. We began with couple of places in the city including Abbey falls and went to Nisargdhama after that. Nisargdhama was a good relaxing place and among other things, had a nice tree house. I really want to go spend a day in a big tree house in the middle of some jungle when I get a chance. Dubare elephant camp was next on our list but apparently, the elephants need a nap from 1 to 4 during the day and we had to reach Nagarhole before it got dark. So, no elephant ride for us. From there, we went to Bylekuppe Tibetan Monastery which happened to fall on our way to Nagarhole. The monastery was pretty big and the main temple was flooded with golden decorations. I remember having seen a monk riding a bullet motorcycle in his robe before we entered the monastery. This was close to evening and we went straight to Nagarhole from there.

We stayed in a resort called Jungle Inn, close to the national park. The place was very quiet, not at all over-crowded and had good food. We got to have a bonfire in the night and had to get up early around 5:30 the next morning. Rented a jeep for safari in the park during morning and travelling to near-by coffee plantations during the day. The park was not very dense, at least that time of the year, and we couldn’t spot a tiger, about which we were so looking forward to. We did get to see elephants, mongoose, boars, bison, langoors and deer. Our safari finished around 10 and we got out of the other side of national park to see coffee plantations, which were plenty by the way, and a waterfall called Irupu falls. Our driver was patient enough to answer all the questions Sakshi had about a coffee plant and its lifecycle. Irupu falls tuned out to be better than Abbey: there was more water and one could actually go under the fall. The plan was to leave the same day for Mysore and from there to Bangalore. We reached Mysore just in time to get a glimpse of the Sunday lighting of the palace. Left for Bangalore by bus and reached home around 1 AM. Played holi the next day in our building and it was great fun. Got to capture some lovely pictures.