Trip to Masinagudi

Megha, Ram and Bhadra were suppose to come to our house this weekend (18-Aug-2018) but she called last Thursday to check whether we want to go to Masinagudi / Bandipur and our reply as usual was yes. So she quickly booked a place in Masinagudi.

Saturday, we woke up at 3:45 am and got ready and started from our house at 4:45 am. We reached Megha's house at 6:00 am. Ram told that they have bought some items to donate for Kerala flood. Btw it is scary there in Kerala and some part of Karnataka due to flood and land slides. I read in news paper that this kind of flood didn't have in last 100 years in Kerala. We were also worried if we can reach Masinagudi because we have to cross Kaveri river which too is flooded.

Anyway we 4.5 of us were ready and started from there place at 6:30 am with all relief material. I started to drive, Bhadra was with Ram and Megha and Runai were in back seat with relief material. We reached Kengeri and handed over the materials and started at 7:30 am from there. Our next stop was at mcdonalds in Mysore road for breakfast. Had breakfast, checked tyre pressure because it was behind a petrol pump and from there Ram started to drive. We crossed Mysore and was en route Bandipur and the trouble started. Because of Kaveri flooding, road was closed in Kabini area. We were asked to go through some village and some road which google doesn't know. But luckily all vehicles were moving in that direction and we followed them. Found out that 5 km drive in highway was 15 km now and took an hour. We were very hungry too. Runai took some biscuit from home which we all finished. Anyway we crossed that area and crossed Bandipur without sighting any animals except few spotted deer. Reached our place (Home Stay) in Masinagudi around 1:30 pm. The very first thing we asked Rakesh (owner of the place) "lunch please" which Megha already informed earlier to the owner about what we want to eat for lunch.

We were served lunch at 2:30 pm with rice, sambar, rasam, curd, pickle, poriyal and chicken fry. Food was simply awesome. We took some rest and also some photos. The place has some varity of birds. Around 4:30 pm we went to see a dam which is in 15th hair-pin bend in Ooty road. It is raining crazy here so mostly dam will be full and there are endless waterfall that we could see while driving. Once we reached the place we saw a waterfall with huge force coming down. There was a police check-post and the policeman told that the road is closed because they opened the dam and it is dangerous for anyone to go there. So we took a U turn and then on our way we took some photos of the waterfall and the valley and hills and returned back. We had some bajji and back to our place. Evening around 6:30 pm again we started to go towards Singara in a hope to see animals. We filled petrol which is the only petrol pump there. We went in for 5-10 km and couldn't find anything. Leave alone animals not even a single person. We saw some place that bamboos were broken, so thought we would see some elephants but none. The road was pitch dark in jungle and no lights with rain but road was very good, we thought to return back. We were back by 8:30 pm. In town we bought some banana and guava. Had our dinner where they cooked chapati, egg curry and veg curry which we requested them in afternoon.

Next Sunday we woke up around 5:30 am and got ready by 6:30 am and headed toward Bandipur in hope to see animals. It was raining heavily but we could see peacocks, Mommy elephants with its kid, variety of deer, wild boar and mongoose. We didn't go to Bandipur rather took a U-turn from Tamil Nadu checkpost and way back to hotel. We freshedup and again started and this time headed toward Moyar. On our way we again saw lots of peacock and one was about to fan out its feather due to I guess cloud or rain, but couldn't get good picture because it went inside jungle. We went till the dam and came back hotel. Around 10:30 am, we had puri with aloo masiyal. Then we took bath, packed our bags, paid hotel and started from there at 12:30 pm. I started to drive and this time we saw lots of animals in Bandipur. A full family of elephants and other animals. They old thing left was bison and tigers. Bison, we have seen in previous trip where they were grazing and tiger never ever. On our way back we were allowed to go through highway but very slowly in Kabini area. We could see that one side of the place was flooded. Shops, house, temples, lands everything were under water. Bridge in the road we crossed were about to be under water. But luckily we could pass the place and reached Mysore. We stopped there and had lunch. We started again from there at 3;30 pm and took Kanakpura road instead of Mysore road to avoid traffic. We reached Megha's house around 7:30 pm and Megha gave us a curry leaf plant and from there we took our car and reached home at 9:00 pm.