interested in weekend wildlife/heritage trips from Bangalore?

arvind_s

Hi All,

I plan to use some of the upcoming weekends to explore wildlife parks/heritage trips around Bangalore -- places in North Karnataka (Hampi et al), Nagarhole, Ranganthittu, etc, probably taking KSTDC (Karnataka state tourism development corporation) tours for some of them. Are there other forum members interested? If so, we can even plan something custom to all the interested parties.

Arvind

Aparajith

Would like to do Hampi and Nagarhole. But not sure if KSTDC are good enough. They cover things in Hampi but it is a rapid fire round. I wish some lesuire. But keep posted on the stuff, might join in. I'm bit in to photography so I would test patience of others with me

kshastry

Hi, quiet a newbie to IM.

I will be game for Hampi. How about Uttara Kannada? It has many gems which are not popular yet. Let me know if you are able to come up with some plan.

natasha chanda acharya

hey, Arvind!
Found you! I hope!

Check out Karnataka Tourism Conducted Tours
for all that KSTDC has to offer.

I have been to quite a few jungles near here... bandipur, nagarhole, mudumalai, bhadra tiger reserve, and wayanad. Mudumalai is a complete waste of time. At least for the avarage tourist. The safari covers a stretch that is quite near the highway and the only thing i spotted was a malabar squirrel. There is too much noise and it's just not worth it. I specially liked nagarhole for it's pin drop silence. If you stay the the forest guest house at night, which is in the midle of the jungle, you will be in the midst of absolue silence with only jungle night sounds. its an amazing experience. not too much big game spotting, but you can have your fill of deers and wild boars and the likes. My favourite in terms of spotting has been wayanad. I have never seen so many elephants in my life. it's a beautiful jungle. and not crowded with tourists at all. Really wonderful.

Heritage is, of course, either belur halebid, or Hampi and badami. check Hampi: Everything you want to know.
I think the KSTDC tours are quite decent.
If you want something closer to home, you could try talacaud and somnathpur. check Somnathpur & Talacaud

By the way, where is Ranganthittu?

aadil

Ranganatithu is near Srirangapattina near Mysore, a beautiful bird sanctuary that we went to in June and really enjoyed it so much we went for the boat ride again after the first one was over!!! I am sure you will love it there with all the different species of water birds. If you are interested in wildlife I am not sure if you can actually see any tigers in any of the wildlife parks in India except for the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh and the Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan. So I would rather suggest someone interested in seeing the majestic animal in all it's splendour at the tiger and lion safari near Shimoga where there is also an Elephant Training Camp at nearby Gajanur which is well worth visiting and the animals are kept in a natural environment and they are not in cages except for a small number of leopards, hyenas, jackals, crocodiles and some tame animals like rabbits, peacocks, parrots and monkeys. The tigers, lions, spotted deer, sambar deer are in different large enclosures where they have a bus ride to see them and we also hired the whole bus so we could enjoy the ride on our own after going along with the group of people first. The best view of tigers I have seen in a controlled environment that is as natural as possible without making them feel as if they are even in a huge enclosure was here so I would recommend it to anyone who is going for a short trip to Shimoga.

Hampi, Badami, Aihole, Pattadakkal, Halebid, Belur, Somnathpur are all something not to be missed in one's lifetime and I was lucky to see all of them except the last one, during my recent trip to Karnataka!!! All these are also UNESCO World Heritage Sites so it makes it all the more interesting to see these classical places. Only grouse is that they are not really well maintained and the foreign tourist gets a raw deal when they pay so much more than us Indians. The amenities at the sites as well as the preservation and restoration work is not up to the mark for such well deserved sites and the attitude of the staff is also very lackadaisical so no one is really interested in keeping these sites preserved for our future generations.

About the KSTDC tours I did take one that originated in Hospet for Hampi but took it in Hampi and left it at the Vitthala temple at the end of the day and they only had a guide who kept on repeating the same line over and over and over again. "This is a dead temple in a dead city!!!" How I wish he would say something different atleast once!!! HAHAHA!!! They also gave a room at the KSTDC hotel in Hampi for about 45 minutes after lunch to freshen up and that was the only saving grace of the tour. The bus was nice and clean but the guide could have been much better and informative. They took us to all the major places so it was nice but it is preferable to do it on your own as we did later on after this brief preview of the place on the first day.

Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Aadil.

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lonelyaztec

Arvind,

Aztec here.

Welcome to IM..

i will join to places i have not visited.

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My photoblog

arvind_s

Hi All,

Thanks for detailed replies! I will keep you posted if I plan something out of the blue that most of you may not have done already! :-)

Aadil: I agree, KSTDC guides are terrible -- had the similar experience on Mysore bus. I prefer it for the convenience of not having to arrange/find transport everywhere. For knowing about the places, I prefer a guide book and sitting away from the speakers!

Arvind

JKCO

Hi Arvind,

I'm totally new to this but thought I'd drop in at the end of your thread to se if you are still making any plans - I just joined IM today, and arrived in India/Bangalore last week, so any trips that you fancy doing will be new for me.

I'm working here, so weekend trips would be great - let me know if you are still wanting to do anything.

J