An evening trip to Mudumalai wild life sanctuary, Tamilnadu

It would be around, hmm..., six months since our trip to Ooty-Coonoor. And we never wrote about it. Don't really know why, but we missed it. 

  However, there were sub-trips within that trip which had the potential to make travelogues of their own. We already dug out one such sub-trip, the Nilgiri Express... UNESCO World Heritage Site . Here is the other. The day end visit to Mudumalai National Park. 

  We did not drive to Ooty as my wife was skeptical about driving on hilly roads. So we booked KSRTC Airavat Volvo bus to get to Ooty and back to B'lore.

  In Ooty we had to rely on a local travel agent for all the sight seeing. So it was a small Swaraj Mazda with a fantastic driver cum guide. We never met such a driver before; he was very interested in wild life photography and had his own collection of some spectacular wild life photos... in his small point and shoot camera that he always carried with him.

  The bus-day-trip covered mostly "Pykara man made water falls", "Pykara Lake(we enjoyed speed boating here", some golf course where Bollywood movies were shot, a pine forest, and "Mudumalai National Park". There was a spot called 9th mile which was like a very small hillock and we could see other hill tops from there.

  When we reached Mudumalai, it was around 4 O' clock at afternoon. 

Entrance to the Mudumalai National Park

 The guide grabbed tickets for the bus ride in the jungle. It was again a Swaraj Mazda painted in forest colour(green, yellow etc.). 

The bus for the park tour

  Its around a 45 mins trip inside the park. We could see usual animals(usual meaning those we saw in other parks). Although the driver(park bus driver) was very hopeful that we would see tigers, we did not. Well, yes, he did mention that it is hard to see tigers as they mostly prefer to stay in the deeper part of the jungle.

  We were done by 6'o clock in the evening. 

   Here are some of the pics from inside the park.

Two monkeys sitting in the same pose

From inside the park bus

Bison

Spotted Deer

Another spotted deer.. the little one

National bird in National park

Wild boar

I like bamboo leaves coz I am monkey

Herd of elephants

  We visited this place around first week of November. A good idea is to take more buffer time while visiting this park. Yes, there are cheetah,wild dogs, jackals etc. in the park. We were not fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of them. There are several jungle lodges there. So if you are a wild life enthusiast, you can spend a couple of days here.

   If you prefer to spend some more time inside the jungle, you better book a jeep that is also available at a higher rate.

   So share your experience with us whenever you visit the park.