Away for the weekend!

Evening of 12th August, 2005 -– finally the much awaited long weekend was here. We (my parents and I) decided we'’d drive down to Mysore and then go to Bandipur from there.
As planned, we left home at 6.30 AM 13th morning, not wanting to get stuck in traffic. The 4-lane highway to Mysore is still being laid, and this can cause a bit of a frustration to the person who is driving because for every 4-5 kms that you get to drive at top speed, you are forced to take a diversion and drive on the other side of the road along with the oncoming traffic. We stopped for breakfast at a place in Maddur and then reached Mysore at about 10 AM.
We checked into the hotel, left our bag and baggage there, took a cab and started off on our journey. On the way we saw so many fields full of sunflowers. It was such delight!
About 23 kms from Mysore is Nanjangud, very famous for its Nanjundeshwara temple. What fascinated me about this temple is its copper colour. Every other temple that I can think of is painted in blue, green, red... and made as multi-coloured as possible.
After crossing Gundalpet village, on the right hand side, there'’s a road leading to Gopala Swamy Betta. My friends had told me that this was a must -see. On the way up, we stopped to take some pictures. Our driver pointed out deep into the forest where we were able to spot a herd of elephants romping around. We quickly fetched binoculars from the car sighted an elephant family happily moving along with its little one. Unfortunately it was too far off and I was not able to take a picture of it. When we reached the top, the weather was just wonderful. It being a cloudy day, it was very windy up there and the light drizzle just made it perfect.
We had been told that the safari at Bandipur was from 4-6 PM only, so we had to now hurry without any further stops. Bandipur was filled with people. I guess there were more visitors there than wild animals. Even before getting into the area reserved for safari, we could see deer prancing around and crossing the road.
There were even elephants been taken to the lake for a drink. For the safari, a trip in the usual bus costs Rs.25, if you want an open jeep it costs you Rs.1500. We thought it would be worth it to take the jeep but then, sadly the jeep had been booked for the next two days.... (we later on found out, that this had been good-- in a way)
So, off we went on the safari, looking out in every possible direction, trying to spot elephants, bears and maybe even a tiger. As wefurtherfuther into the forest, we spotted lots n lots of deer, a couple of peacocks, elephants which ran away and quickly hid themselves behind bushes, well away from our sight. So in all, we lots lots of deer and monkeys. Even if we had managed to go by the jeep, this is all we'’d have seen : ) Having done with the safari, we went back to see the elephants which were now ready to gives rides.

Back in Mysore, we had dinner at the hotel and retired for the day, listening to the pitter patter of the rain outside and the constant grrrr.... of the AC that slowly took over.
Sunday morning after breakfast, we went to the palace gates and tried to take a few shots of the beauty which lay within.
From there we headed out to the KRS dam which houses Brindavan gardens. Walking amongst the numerous fountains its not too difficult visualise a Jayapradha and a Jitendra doing a dance number with lots of jhatkas and matkas in their ever so colourful garb!

2 weeks back, the water level in the dam had risen so much that it had overflowed and the garden had to be closed to the public. So we were assured of lots n lots of water at the dam. Sure enough, the water wasup toled upto the brim. It was just amazing to see the huge mass of water which spread out in every direction.
Having ticked off all the places we wanted to see this time, we headed back to Bangalore. We had lunch at the same place where we'd had breakfast the previous day. In a few hours time we were back in Bangalore and at home. Thus ended the journey from the wild jungles of Bandipur, we were back at the concrete jungle called Bangalore!

You can view all the photos here :)